


A Base to Stand On

by Randomixx



Series: Brave Hart [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Foreshadowing, Gen, Light Angst, Snark, but you'll need to squint to find it!, lots of snark, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:29:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomixx/pseuds/Randomixx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diamond City. The Jewel of the Commonwealth. The biggest – and arguably only – new bastion of civilisation for miles around. It’s a place of opportunity and new beginnings, a hub for gossip and leads, and the single safest location in a region filled with all sorts of things that are trying to kill you.</p><p>But held in the deathly-cold grip of fear and paranoia, it isn’t exactly living up to its reputation. Fortunately for Sammie Hartwell, the Great, Green Jewel also works its magic in more subtle ways, with bigger players than one might expect hiding in the shadows cast by the Wall.</p><p>Sometimes, you just need the right friends to illuminate the way, even if they’re not be the ones you initially expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Jewel of the Commonwealth

By this point, Sammie liked to think that her continued survival in post-apocalyptia meant that she was getting used to the whole business of what Boston had become following the war, and that soon she might even begin to call the bizarre things she encountered every day normal.

“ _Fenway_? What have they done to you!?”

Standing before formerly familiar but now rusted and spray paint-covered green walls with her jaw hanging open proved that the Commonwealth had many a surprise yet to throw at her. Sure, she had had her suspicions based on the directions she had been given, but nothing could have prepared her for finding an _actual town_ situated right in the middle of the stadium proper, rather than the surrounding parking lots. In hindsight it actually made a lot of sense: The building itself was like a pre-built perimeter wall, just waiting for the right group of opportunists to come along, set up shop, and call it home.

But still.

“Oh, the…” Codsworth started, but trailed off. Sammie had a feeling that she knew what he had been about to say, and if her hunch was correct she appreciated him metaphorically biting his tongue. Nate’s family had been _mega_ Red Sox fans, and while her husband had taken more of a liking to soccer himself, she could only begin to imagine what his reaction to something so _sacrilege_ as repurposing their home field might be.

She was greeted here and there by guards clad in repurposed baseball pads who were even so gracious as to direct her towards the entrance – the old main gate, still functioning or at least rebuilt after all this time. Wandering down the western side of the stadium, Sammie reflected on the thought that it was nice actually arriving at a town to be met with polite curiosity and basic manners for once, instead of the usual raised guns and distrusting leers.

“What d’ya _mean_ you can’t open the gate?! Stop playing around, Danny! I’m standing out in the open here, for crying out loud!”

Spoke too soon.

Walking through the last chipboard-and-scaffolding security checkpoint, Sammie and Codsworth were confronted with the massive green gate that sealed Fenway’s main entrance. The massive green gate that was very much closed. A lone, dark-haired woman in a red coat seethed next to the intercom, which crackled to life when Sammie inched closer to investigate: “I got orders not to let you in, Ms. Piper. I’m sorry, I’m just doing my job.”

“‘Just doing your job”? Protecting Diamond City means keeping me out, is _that it_?” The girl apparently name Piper responded. “‘Ooohh, look! It’s the scary reporter!’ Bah!”

“ _Urgh_ …” Sammie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Great, of all the professions that could have survived to the present day, why did it have to be the _press_?

“Again, I’m sorry, but Mayor McDonough’s really steamed, sayin’ that article you wrote was all lies: The whole city’s in a tizzy.” And not just any reporter – the type who liked to write expos _é_ s! Sure, Sammie had always appreciated those who sought to reveal the less glamourous dealings of The Man, but she really didn’t have time for this right now. In fact she was fairly certain that The Man couldn’t really exist anymore, since the world no longer had any social structure capable of supporting the concept in the first place.

“Argh! You open this gate _right now_ , Danny Sullivan!” Piper continued to rage at the gatekeeper on the other side of the speaker with no sign of stopping any time soon, so Sammie decided to focus her efforts on concocting her own plans for getting inside the city limits.

“Sooo… Codsworth, any ideas?” she queried, raising her hands in a questioning gesture, “I get the feeling that as long as she’s there, they’re not going to be opening that door for anyone.”

“Even if that wasn’t a factor, we’re not exactly in a position to offer anything to the city to begin with,” Codsworth, as was often the case, was far less than helpful with his “helpful advice”. Sammie crossed her arms, fighting the urge to retort with sarcasm that would just fly over his spherical head anyway. “Or… To even know what exactly they’d be inclined to open their doors _for_ , now that I think about it.”

“Uh, hey? You? You want in, right?”

“Wargh!?” Sammie jumped and spun on the spot, throwing a hand to her chest and taking a wheezing breath when she saw the reporter standing there, arms crossed behind her back and eyes raised in curiosity at her. “Oh, gosh. Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Well, I wouldn’t be able to sneak up on you if you checked your six as often as most folks do,” Piper snickered, betraying the joking nature of her comment that could have otherwise been taken as a snide jab, “Anyway, lemme ask again: You want to get into Diamond City, right?”

With no legitimate reason not to, Sammie decided to just let the truth out. “Yeah. That’s exactly why I’m here.”

“Alright, good. Just play along…” Piper beckoned Sammie over and scooted back to the intercom, pressing a finger over her lips with a grin. Sammie and Codsworth exchanged glances, and she followed with a sigh. Just what was she getting herself into here? “Hey, uh, what was that? You said you’re a trader up from Quincy? You have enough supplies to keep the general store stocked for a whole month! Wow!”

Catching on to the bluff, Sammie’s eyes widened and she cut in with a harsh whisper. “I’m not sure this is a good idea–”

“Shh!” Piper shook her head and sliced a finger across her neck in a signal for Sammie to shut it before she ruined the entire ploy. “You hear that, Danny!? You gonna open the gate and let us in? Or are you going to be the one telling crazy Myrna she’s losing out on all this merchandise?”

There was a pause, then the static-y blowing sound of an exasperated sigh sounded over the audio feed. “Jeeze! Alright! No need to make it personal, Piper… Gimme a minute…”

Piper clapped her hands together, satisfied, and took a few steps away from the gate as it began to shift and screech to life. Sammie’s reaction was more subdued, a grimace and her eyes darting around to make sure no one had seen that. “ _Great_. Lying and extortion. Just the first impression I wanted to make at the biggest settlement around.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine!” The other woman said, flicking her hand dismissively. “Just be sure to head inside quickly before Danny catches on to the bluff, and no one will even know you were involved!”

“She does has a point, ma’am. And we can’t exactly argue with the results!” Codsworth pointed out, and Sammie resigned herself to slowly nodding in agreement.

“Piper!? Who let you back inside?” That agreement didn’t last long, because the moment the metal panel had lifted out of the way a man came storming out, red in the face with a fist raised in the air. “I told Sullivan to keep that gate _shut_. You devious, rabble-rousing slanderer!”

The moment Piper laid eyes on him, her expression warped to mimic his own scowl and she too started to look a spot red around the edges. She strode forward to make absolutely sure that she’d be inside if the entrance started to close again, and the pair immediately launched into a heated debate that Sammie wasn’t particularly sure she wanted to stick around for. The handful of guards about seemed to share this sentiment, because more than one were starting to inch their ways over to a chain-link gate just further beyond the former ticket dispensary. Sammie opted to follow their lead, but she didn’t get far.

“…Hey! You support the news, right?” Piper waved after her, and pointed an accusing finger at her more rotund opponent. “Because the mayor here’s threatening to throw free speech into the dumpster!”

“Really now, Piper? Dragging _her_ into this?” The man immediately snapped back, and Sammie felt a wave of sickness pass over her. He was _the mayor_? And she had just helped pull the wool over his eyes, unwittingly or not? She suddenly had a very bad feeling about this entire ordeal, and she skipped damage control mode entirely in her search for an out: _Any_ out.

“I, uh, th-this isn’t really my business–”

“Oh c’mon! You wouldn’t even be in here if it weren’t for me!” Piper whined, cutting her off.

“See? This poor woman just wants to get on with her day, without getting dragged in to whatever slippery scheme you’re coming up with next!” The mayor all but shouted, pulling Piper’s attention back onto himself as he went on to accuse the reporter of being unable to simply live and let live. Sammie saw her chance, and with a quick gesture to Codsworth for him to follow as quickly as he could, she turned and ran.

“Owowowowow!”

…Only to slam straight into one of the guards who had been trying to stealthily slip by before he, too, got dragged into the argument. Both he and Sammie recoiled, the latter groaning and clutching her forehead where they had inadvertently clonked skulls together, and the former fumbling to catch the pair of sunglasses that had been knocked straight off of his face.

“Oh, shit. I am so sorry! I didn’t see you there!” Sammie blurted out, once the daze left her and he was able to get proper grip on the rogue shades.

“Ahahahah, oh gosh! It’s no problem,” he replied, slipping his glasses back on and wincing as he rubbed his own bald noggin, “I’d have to be a complete _monster_ to blame you for wanting to get outta’ here when the mayor gets all… ‘Yelly’ _,_ like this.”

“Eh-heh, yeah, uh… I’ll just be moving along now,” Sammie pointed to the gate vaguely, and the guard nodded, though she didn’t feel entirely convinced that it was all water under the bridge. In an attempt to leave on another point, she quickly added: “Nice sunnies, by the way. I should maybe try to find some myself.”

He grinned. “Trust me, there isn’t _anyone_ who’d look worse in a good pair of shades. Anyways, welcome to the, uh, Greet Green Jewel! You’ll totally love it here.” With a casual wave, he sidestepped towards the gate and quickly ducked through it, and Sammie made to follow.

“Miss? _Miss_!” It was the mayor’s voice, and Sammie internally groaned. What did he want? Why couldn’t she catch a break? She prayed to herself that she wasn’t in trouble, then sighed and turned to face the man as he closed the distance at a jog, pausing for a moment to lean on his knees and catch his breath. “I’m sorry, I must apologise for that mess back there. I didn’t mean for you to be brought into that argument. In fact, I’d say that you look like you’d make excellent Diamond City material.”

Sammie felt the throbbing of her veins reduce somewhat in relief, having the upper hand for once being a nice change of pace. So naturally she had to go and blow it. “Really, I should probably be the one apologising–”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the mayor cut her off, placing a hand over his chest in exaggerated sincerity, while putting a visible effort into _not_ leering at Piper as she passed him and Sammie by, a frown plastered to her own face. “Let I, Mayor McDonough, offer you a personal welcome to the Great, Green Jewel of the Commonwealth! Safe, happy. A fine place to come, spend your money, perhaps even settle down.” His expression soured suddenly, and he peeked over Sammie’s shoulder. “Don’t let that muckraker tell you otherwise, all right? Now, ah… Was there anything in particular you came to our city for? Perhaps I could help?”

“Well… I’m trying to find someone,” Sammie said, “I was told this’d be the place to start if I wanted the best chance.”

McDonough’s arms fell to his sides, brows furrowing. “Find someone? Oh dear. Who, might I ask?”

At this Sammie hesitated. She hadn’t thought about it before, but it occurred to her right then and there that revealing _too much_ information could be just as detrimental to her search as not saying enough. She decided upon a happy medium: “Just… A family member of mine. Who went missing.”

The man’s face fell somewhat, but before he could respond another voice suddenly yelled out from the city proper: “Well, whatever you do! Don’t bother going to _Diamond City Security_ for help!”

Both Sammie and McDonough flinched, turning to the source of it to find Piper shouting down the short length of service corridor that led out onto Fenway’s field with a sneer. A moment later she had spun on her heel and disappeared out of sight.

“D-don’t listen to her!” the mayor sputtered, then straightened his tie to buy himself time to recompose, “While I’m afraid our security team can’t follow _every_ missing person report that comes through, I’m confident you can find help here.”

“Might I ask if you would have any suggestions on where to start, then, mayor?” Sammie decided to see how far she could push her luck while he was still trying to suck up to her.

The result wasn’t promising, his shoulders slumping while his lips pressed themselves into a flat line. “I’m sorry, but I’m a busy man. I don’t quite have time to get to know every person in the city.” His tone was more evasive than genuinely apologetic, and Sammie felt an unimpressed stare start to take shape on her face. Before it could fully form though, McDonough seemed to debate with himself for a moment, wringing his fingers, then held up a lone, pointed finger when his internal conflict was resolved. “But! I am sure that _plenty_ of our upstanding citizens would be more than happy to aid you. Diamond City is the largest hub of trade in the entire Commonwealth, after all: Every conceivable service known to man can be found here. And some of the more… _Specific_ _professions_ you’ll be able to find might surprise you!”

The man put a lot of emphasis on those two words, even bobbed his head in a slight nod that took the role of a wink to indicate that he was giving Sammie a hint. Unofficial, off the books, and non-specific, but a hint nonetheless: It was better than nothing.

“Alright. Thank you, sir.” She still felt some degree of disappointment and wasn’t quite able to hide it, but she forced a smile and nodded.

Satisfied that she had gotten his hidden message, the mayor clapped his hands with finality and grinned. “Excellent! Do enjoy your stay in our fair city!” He moved to pass Sammie by and she stood back for a moment to let him by. The relatively narrow ‘bridge’ that led out onto the pitch wasn’t really suited to two people and a Mister Handy robot standing abreast after all, and then she gestured to Codsworth to follow once the mayor had gotten a bit of a head start.

Time to finally see this ‘Great Green Jewel’ that everyone seemed to be making such a fuss out of. Stepping out from the service tunnel, holding up a hand to shade her eyes while they readjusted to the midmorning light, Sammie nodded in understanding once she took in the sight.

While the stadium walls were the only part of the town that were green like its nickname, the settlement really did appear to be something of a diamond in the rough: Before her stretched a decently sized marketplace, stallholders barking their wares and shoppers mingling about a centrepiece in the form of a crooked tower that billowed white steam from its top. Buildings, cobbled together from whatever materials were available, surrounded the square and some of them even appeared to have two storeys, the ones that didn’t instead being topped with anything from advertisements, to chairs and tables serving as makeshift balconies, to even an old trailer or two. The rows of dwellings continued beyond just the immediate surroundings, with some taller constructions just barely visible above the others from her vantage point, flush up against the wall separating the northern stands from the field, where still more shacks were built into and lined the bleachers, connected by a network of walkways that reached almost up to the very top edges of the stadium.

Closer to where she was, lights of various shapes and sizes were strung between walls, posts, and ragged awnings and Sammie’s heart leapt at the idea of working electricity as she continued on down the walkway, craning her head back to see behind her where the stands and VIP boxes rose skyward, surrounded by catwalks and construction lifts that were well-maintained enough to not be creaking with every stray gust of wind. Facing forward again once her neck began to ache, Sammie spotted a bright red coat that gave Piper’s position in the crowd away, talking to a young girl by a dwelling labelled “Publick Occurrences” just at the end of the ramp, before she threw her hands up in the air and stormed inside.

Taking all this in, Sammie had to let out a stuttering laugh.

“S-so then, Codsworth. All we have to do. Is find the one person among the potentially hundreds here, who has a ‘bright heart’. How hard could it _possibly_ be?”

“Probably about as much as you would expect a statistical anomaly, ma’am.”

Sammie facepalmed while she walked. Right. She sometimes forgot that Codsworth wasn’t exactly programmed to understand sarcasm.

“Free paper to newcomers!” a voice shouted, and Sammie looked up to find it was that girl, “If the Institute grabs you in the night, at least we warned you!”

“Institute, huh?” Sammie parroted, not sure if she was surprised to be hearing that name again so soon, or just plain tired of it. “Those guys cranking out the Murderbot 9000s, right?”

“Yeah! It’s all in the paper! Better read up before they grab you, too!” The child punctuated her words with a dramatic wave of her hands, quickly fishing a rolled-up paper from her messenger bag and holding it out. Well she certainly knew a thing or two about marketing, that was for sure.

“Alright, I’ll take a look. Thanks kid,” Sammie replied with some humour, unable to tell someone so young to stick it, especially when she wanted to make a good impression in the town as well. She tightened the roll and slid it carefully into a side pocket of her pack as she walked away, only to stop and frown back at the child’s sideways comment about her being a lost lamb in a den of wolves. “Okaaay… Whatever. Now where do we start?”

“Oh, look! A protectron!” Codsworth suddenly piped up in an excited tone, and glided past Sammie toward the tower in the middle of the marketplace. With no other options, Sammie chuckled and followed, her grin widening at the chef’s hat perched on top of the robot in question as it stirred a pot of noodles. An automated noodle bar? She could get behind this.

“Greetings sir! Good to see another robot in town!”

“Do yourself a favour and just say ‘yes,” a middle-aged looking woman at the counter grumbled at the Mister Handy without even looking up from her bowl of noodles, her voice sour enough to knock the smile back off Sammie’s face.

“Nani shimasu ka.”

“Takahashi, you say? I’m Codsworth, a pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

“Nani shimasu ka.”

“Oh, is that so? Well we both know RobCo is no General Atomics. It’s not surprising it failed, shoddy work and all… Chin up, though! You never know when the parts may turn up!”

“Nani shimasu ka.”

Sammie blinked, unsure what to say about the apparent conversation between the two bots, and the complete silence that had fallen over the other patrons at the stand and some surrounding tables, all of them staring at Codsworth as he hovered back over – at least one man with half a forkful of noodles hanging out of his mouth – indicated she wasn’t the only one. She thought she heard a spoon clatter to a table.

“Well he’s quite the nice chap! Some predictable problems with RobCo engineering, but a positive breath of fresh air compared to those hooligans we met with Mister Danse before!” Codsworth went on to explain that Takahashi had supposedly suggested asking the various stallholders around the market about who they could go to for help with finding Shaun, so Sammie did just that.

The results were… Lacklustre. After the exchange between the two robots, a good majority of people about the plaza had stopped to watch Sammie and her mechanical manservant for at least a moment, and now as she made her way around the centre of town, looking at wares and asking questions, it was starting to look as though most people had already made up their minds about her. The back of her neck prickled at wary glances and hushed exchanges as she passed couples and groups by, and individuals ducked out of the way or pretended to become extremely interested in a shoopkeeper’s stock or various notices tacked to the walls when she moved as if to approach.

Some people even had the audacity to try insulting her for the crime of attempting to start a friendly conversation. Least of all being the one wide-eyed lady who started accusing her of being a synth and simply refused to listen to anything Sammie or Codsworth tried to say in her defence.

“Ah, yes. That one’s what we like to call the ‘Scavver Special’: The split ends and flecks of blood serve to really accentuate your features.”

“Not as much as your features would be ‘accentuated’ if _you_ were try and take on hundreds of feral ghouls by yourself,” Sammie snapped back, and the hairdresser and his snobby-looking client immediately balked and shrunk back. Okay, so it hadn’t been _hundreds_ of feral ghouls, and with the Brotherhood personnel she hadn’t exactly been by herself, but it got the point across. Sammie scoffed and continued on, figuring she might have better luck if she tried somewhere besides the market until everyone started to forget their initial opinions on her…

She passed by what appeared to be an inn, which she made a mental note of to remember later because she was going to need a place to stay the night. Next up was a lab of some sort, which she ducked her head in under the pretence that anyone who was the sort to work in science was also enough of a shut-in to have not seen her yet: This plan was abandoned when the first thing she saw was two women in lab coats hurling test tubes at each other while one screeched about her terminal being broken by the other’s “experiment” leaking all over it.

Sammie hadn’t slammed a door shut and trotted away, whistling, faster before in her life.

Finding herself in a quieter part of town, Sammie decided it best to leave the radio station alone rather than risk interrupting and embarrassing herself live on air, and when she came across the water supply and its young custodian she couldn’t bring herself to mention her search for a missing boy. While Sheng appeared to be more than happy with his place in life, the case of his missing (or perhaps worse?) parents wasn’t one that Sammie wanted to risk getting close to in case it happened to be a well-hidden sore spot. She also purchased an extra bottle of water, because you could never be too careful with spares.

The people working in a farm that took up a small clearing in the middle of the pitch looked haggard and worn-down, averting their gazes when Sammie passed by or staring at her with thousand-yard gazes that almost rivalled those she remembered from Anchorage. The ones who spoke at all were just about as lively in answering when she questioned them, and the vault dweller suppressed a shudder before moving on once the memories they triggered started to become too much, and the reality that she wouldn’t get any information here sunk in.

Sammie’s legs ached, her stomach was gnawing at itself, and the sun was starting to dip below the rim of the western stands by the time she got back to the marketplace. It was an appropriate metaphor for her mindset, she thought dully as she trudged away from the “swatter” seller, her increasingly foul mood having caused her to get into a heated debate over the reality of how baseball worked, and subsequently get told in none-too-polite-terms to bugger off when she had responded to his sales pitch (ha ha) by pointing out that no one could be stupid enough to bring a baseball bat to a gunfight.

“Excuse me? You okay there, lady?” Another stallholder just next door waved Sammie down, and she had to fight not to glare at him as she walked over. “Saw you getting roasted by Myrna earlier, and it’s not looking like you’ve had the greatest time for the rest of the day either.”

Sammie sighed dramatically, half stalling for time to think and half out of relief at someone finally addressing her like a human being. “Ooohhh, let’s just say it’s been a long day… I think I understand why everyone seems to hate that reporter now, because apparently answering questions honestly is the hardest thing in the world!”

The man blinked, chuckled, then frowned and leant to the side a bit, peering over Sammie’s shoulder. “Heee-eey, is that a sniper rifle you’ve got there? Three-oh-eight chamber, aluminium stock, and birdcage-type flash suppressor? _And_ I do spy a custom AER9, too?”

Now it was Sammie’s turn to blink. “Ah, yeah. I guess I’ve managed to win some gratitude from the right places during my travels... How come?”

“No reason in particular, it’s just not every day that someone who can appreciate proper _workmanship_ in a firearm rolls into town. Or at least someone who isn’t with one of the caravans.” He folded his arms and leaned back. “Most folks in Diamond City are content to sit back and the let the Wall protect them these days, makes interest in top-of-the-line mods and ammunition a touch scarce.” He seemed to think for a moment, then held out a hand with a friendly smile, “Name’s Arturo Rodriguez. I own and run Commonwealth Weaponry, so if you want to beef your protection up, let’s talk more. And unlike _some_ of my competition I know the value behind trying to secure repeat customers.”

Sammie didn’t miss his eyes flick to the side at his emphasised word while she shook his hand, indicating the woman who had refused to serve or even talk to Sammie earlier under the belief that she was a synth. “I’m Sammie Hartwell, glad to finally meet someone in this place willing to hold an actual conversation. So I guess I’ll probably do a count of my supplies, and maybe check by in the morning.”

She bunched her shoulders in a shrug while Codsworth said his own hello to Arturo, and the weapon dealer’s grin widened when he greeted the robot back.

“Even packing some pre-war hardware. And in good condition, too! I look forward to seeing you then, then,” he chuckled, crossing his arms again and becoming serious. “Just, if I might pry… What’s this about interviewing people, anyway? Anyway I can help?”

Her first thought was that you weren’t meant to explain the joke, but then it occurred to Sammie that Arturo wasn’t joking at all, but was in fact referring to her own questioning of the locals. Rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly, she quickly gave him the short version of her situation, that she was trying to track down someone who had disappeared.

“Ah, look…” Arturo looked genuinely guilty, but that didn’t change the reality that his answer probably wasn’t going to be what Sammie had been hoping for. “I want to take care of my customers, but with all that talk about the Institute in the papers… I just can’t get too involved in someone else’s problems at the moment.”

As predicted, Sammie sighed through her nose and let her shoulders slump. “ _And_ there’s the Institute. Again. I’m gonna have to sit down and read that paper, huh?”

“It’ll shed a lot of light on why everyone’s so jumpy today, I can tell you that. Especially when it comes to missing people,” Arturo explained with a sympathetic smile, but Sammie wasn’t buying it. Today had just been letdown after letdown after letdown, and she simply couldn’t take any more of it! She grit her teeth and scrunched her eyes shut, trying not to yell at the guy. Or worse, start crying like some pathetic teenager.

Arturo seemed to pick up on this, tapping his bench with a sideways glance. “…Although. Missing people aren’t _always_ the Institute.”

“Yes?” Immediately Sammie shot back up straight, then she swallowed and excused herself. “I mean, all I’m asking for is information. No one has to find out where it _came from_.”

“Okay.” The gun merchant gave her wry smile: _Now_ this woman had the right idea of how this sort of thing worked. “There is someone in town who might be able to help: In the alley behind the market, there’s a detective agency. Valentine’s. You’ll see the signs if you go from this way. But don’t tell anyone you’re going there, okay? A lot of folks in high places don’t like that place, sometimes I’m surprised it’s even still open.”

“A detective?” Codsworth responded, and finally it looked like things were starting to go his and Sammie’s way. “That sounds exactly like what we need, thank you sir!”

“Yes! Thank you, Arturo.” Sammie smiled. “You can count on that I’ll be delivering on that promise to stop by tomorrow.”

The merchant laughed nervously, but he soon regained his former carefree attitude. “Yeah, well… Good luck, I’ll see you then. And I do hope that you find your guy.”

Sammie departed for the alleyway with a final wave and a skip in her step, which she shook off moments later when it almost caused her to trip on one of the wooden pallets that passed for a footpath in the otherwise mud-and-grass field. Fortunately the later hour meant that the crowd had started to disperse by now, and Sammie was able to make her way into the indicated street with her dignity mostly intact.

Arturo hadn’t been wrong about the sign being visible from this direction, and Sammie shook her head and tuttered at herself while studying dim pink letters spelling out the word “Detective” that pointed her down an alleyway. She had passed by here perhaps only half an hour ago, but hadn’t seen the advertisement because it was tucked behind a building’s corner and she had come from the opposite direction.

“To be fair, ma’am. The sun was higher up in the sky then, and the lights on this thing aren’t exactly receiving an adequate supply of electricity,” Codsworth observed, and she smiled at him as thanks for his attempt at keeping her from blaming herself.

That didn’t help at all when she spotted and approached the next sign: Another neon piece with elaborate cursive text that illuminated the dark walkway in a soft, red glow, all tied together by the flickering outline of a heart.

A heart.

 _A bright heart_.

Sammie’s eyes widened, and she promptly threw her hands up to her face and groaned into them. “Oh! My! _God!_ Of _course_ the one time I take that old hag’s words seriously, she has to talk literally instead of in riddles!”

“I’m sorry? What are you talking about, ma’am?” Codsworth asked, his voice modulated with a hint of confusion. Sammie quickly brushed him off and suggested that they test the door in the off chance that this Valentine (done despairing at the sign, Sammie had to admit that he or she had taken the opportunity in their name and _ran_ with it) still had time to hear her out before closing business for the day.

Much to her surprise, the door wasn’t properly closed and swung open on well-oiled hinges when she went to turn the handle. She looked back to Codsworth for a moment, shrugging when he had nothing to offer, and then let herself in.

It was a small office, crammed full of filing cabinets, two desks, a wobbling fan and smelling faintly of stale cigarette smoke. The lone occupant of the room was a younger woman picking through a set of drawers with her back to the entrance, and as Sammie approached – unsure whether to announce her presence – her wistful sighs and muttered, sullen words made it immediately obvious that something was very, very wrong.

“Um, hello?” Sammie spoke up, starting to feel like she was intruding.

“Oh, great,” the woman moaned, her shoulders slumping as she turned to face Sammie, “another stray come in off the street. Afraid you’re too late: Office is closed.”

Sammie let out her own sigh, and Codsworth clinked behind her as his eyestalks scanned over the room. Despite her curiosity about what was troubling the woman, she nodded in resignation, “Ah. Well, sorry then. I guess I’ll come back in the morning.”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant. We’re not just closed for the day, miss. We’re closed permanently.” Coming to the logical conclusion that Arturo had been right about the business being in a bad way, Sammie’s heart sunk. “The detective’s gone missing.”

That, however, was potentially workable. Sammie frowned, opening her mouth slightly to indicate that she was going to say something in the hopes it would give her a chance to think. So the person you go to when you need to find a missing person was themselves missing… Which more than likely meant they had gotten into a sticky situation. Sammie grit her jaw, not particularly liking the prospect of striding out into danger yet again, but…

Mama Murphy had explicitly stated that she needed to follow signs to a bright heart if she was going to find Shaun and bring Nate’s murderers to justice. Well, she had found the sign now, and she’d be damned if she was going to go back to square one again after this debacle of a day.

“Missing? Wait, tell me what happened. Maybe I could help?” she finally forced out. The woman – Valentine’s secretary, she now figured – blinked slowly, then breathed out slowly.

“Well, alright. He disappeared while working a case – a young woman had been kidnapped – and he tracked down the gang responsible to their hideout in Park Street Station: There’s an old vault down there that they’ve been using as a base.” She lifted her hands in exasperation, shaking her head. “I _told_ Nick he was walking into a trap, but… He just smiled and walked out the door like always does.”

“An old vault? That does sound like quite the adventure!” Codsworth was the first to respond, and both humans glanced at him with varying levels of disagreement painted on their faces.

“A vault? Huh,” Sammie stated in much more flat way, “I don’t much fancy the idea of going into one of those again, but if it’s what we need to do to get Valentine back, then so be it.”

“Wait. You’re not actually considering going out there, are you?” The girl’s body language went through a complete transformation, from hopeless to disbelieving. “This is _Skinny Malone’s_ gang we’re talking about! You could get killed!”

“Yep. Just like trying to do literally _anything else_ in this in this trash heap of a world,” Sammie deadpanned, and the woman’s shook deepened. They stared at each other for a moment, and Sammie added on to her comment to keep the conversation flowing before it got even more awkward. “So, uh… Who’s this Skinny Malone character?”

“I don’t know much about him, but he’s from Goodneighbour. And _that_ means he’s into well-pressed suits and Machine Gun’s School of Thuggery.”

That… Really didn’t help much. Sammie grinned sheepishly, “I’m sorry, but… Goodneighbour?”

“Oh, you’re not from around here, aren’t you? Well I guess that would explain your willingness to help,” the secretary commented, smiling sadly, “It’s a tough neighbourhood northeast a ways. People there care about two things: Style, and body count.”

“So… Basically South Boston. Got it. I’ll do my best to find him, you have my word,” Sammie shrugged, her outward casual actions a stark contrast to the tension spreading through her muscles. Raiders and feral ghouls were one thing, but organised crime? She tried her best not to think about it, and instead gave her name in case the secretary needed to find her before the morning.

“I’m Ellie, and thank you… Also, sorry for doubting you. It’s not a common thing for a stranger to walk in one day and actually care about your problems, let alone offer to help. Nick should be easy to spot: He’s always wearing that old hat and trench coat getup,” Ellie’s lips spread into a smile, her gaze distant for a brief moment before she clasped her hands before her, “Please, hurry. And I wish you the absolute best of luck.”

Sammie felt somewhat numb as she left the detective agency, practically not hearing a word that Codsworth said as he gushed about her continued helpful nature and how lucky he was that she had been the one to purchase him as they trudged across Diamond City to the Dugout Inn. The way that Sammie chuckled at the name of the place – grim and distant – seemed to be the hint that the robot needed to figure out that she wasn’t in any mood to talk, and he instead offered her some words of encouragement once she had rented and found her room.

“You’re doing wonderfully, ma’am!” the Mister Handy said while Sammie laid her gear out on a table against a wall next to the bed, “Storming across the Commonwealth, offering aid to those most in need, and gifting _lead_ upon those who deserve it! The hubby would be so proud.”

“Thanks, Codsworth. And you too, I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

“Only doing my best! Now, I would advise that you get a good night’s rest now. Regardless of what tomorrow brings, you’re going to need to be at your sharpest!”

Sammie agreed, with the added statement that being face-down in a bed was what she needed more than anything right now following the day’s events. Because if people and their self-centeredness had been a pain in the ass to deal with before the war, they were absolutely insufferable now.

But… Not before a much-needed stiff drink, first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I've taken some liberties with the description of Diamond City, but that's just keeping in line with the normal way of Bethesda RPGs being a scaled-down representation of the world they're depicting. It's pretty established by now that this series is working via lore scale rather than game scale, so I wanted to portray what I think Diamond City would be like if it weren't for console hardware limitations.


	2. A Walk in the Park

As promised, Sammie started the next morning with a visit to Arturo once the shops started opening (after thanking her lucky stars that she didn’t wake up with hangover, because holy shit was that moonshine stronger than she had expected). There was no mention of their conversation concerning the detective as Sammie handed over a worrisome portion of her dwindling cap supply in exchange for some energy cells and .308 rounds, but she justified the expense with the logic that it was better to be nearly broke but capable of returning to Diamond City in one piece than it was to run out of ammo during her expedition and wind up dead.

She thanked the weapons merchant again, making sure to stress the words properly to imply that her gratitude was for yesterday rather than just the ammo, and stepped aside so that the next customer in line – oh hey, it was that guard she bumped into before – could have a chat with Arturo while browsing his wares. She met back up with Codsworth where he was having another ‘conversation’ with the noddle robot, double-checked her supplies for the day, and then they were off once more, up the ramp that led to the gate and out of town.

It took the better part of the morning to reach the Boston Common: Normally the most direct route from Fenway would be simply following Boylston Street in a straight line, but a bunch of raiders had built a blockade across the road and started taking pot-shots the moment Sammie had been able to figure out that the majority of said blockade was the remains of a crashed bus. Having decided that Commonwealth Avenue was almost certainly being camped by some hostile group based on its prominence alone, Sammie opted to loop around to the south and come back up through the Theatre District, a route that proved only marginally less dangerous: The guys in scavenged military uniforms who had pointed guns at her there had at least been polite enough give her the chance to get a move on _before_ opening fire.

“Ahh… The Boston Public Garden. And look ma’am! Some of the swan boats are still intact!” Codsworth observed, gliding past Sammie – who had been sticking her head around the corner of a building to make sure the coast was clear – toward the fence surrounding the park, all three of his eyestalks wobbling at a swan boat that was partially submerged in the pond.

“Well, I guess that makes sense.” Since the Mister Handy hadn’t been attacked by anything, Sammie figured the spot would be safe enough and followed, lifting her hat an inch to get a better view through the bars. “Not much worth salvaging in a swan boat.”

“Hm, good enough point. Even if still there, their motors would be absolute rubbish!”

“Anyway, the subway station’s on the northern end of the park. Only a little further to go now.” Sammie let her hat fall back into place and readjusted her backpack for the umpteenth time. She had left most of her supplies back at her room at the Dugout to reduce how much she had to carry on this trip, and with nothing but her newly purchased ammunition, a few bottles of water, a tin of Cram, and a couple of mines and grenades in it, the damn thing kept managing to wrap itself about the sniper rifle also slung over her back. As she wandered up the length of Park Street and the entrance to the underground came into view, she added ‘lightweight plastic board’ to her rapidly growing mental list of stuff to scavenge or buy.

A flash of blue in the window of a Nuka Cola machine caught her attention as they rounded the entryway.

“Ooooohhh my god. That isn’t what I think it is, is it!?” Sammie was turning back around and making a beeline for the vending machine before she even finished thinking out loud, eyes lighting up as she read and re-read the label through the glass just to make sure she wasn’t imagining it, and then quickly scanning over the vicinity for a stick or something. “Oh, yes! Yes it is! Come to mummy!”

“Er, ma’am? Do you really think one Nuka Cola warrants such a reac – Oh my! That is quite a large pipe.”

Dragging a crooked pipe that had fallen from some scaffolding just on the other side of the street, Sammie smiled in a slightly deranged fashion. “Codsworth. That’s not just _any_ Nuka Cola. That’s a Nuka Cola _Quantum_. I waited _months_ for that flavour to be released, and of course the moment I got the chance to go out and actually buy one, the world ended! I am _not_ waiting another two hundred years to have another chance.” She leaned her laser rifle against the wall next to the Nuka machine and hefted the pipe, lining it up with the glass experimentally. “You might want to stand back.”

Codsworth didn’t need to be told twice.

_Chmash!_

A rain of glass clinked to the ground, and Sammie poked her pipe into the refrigeration unit to push aside any shards that were too close to the Nuka for comfort before discarding it and triumphantly grabbing her prize.

“Erm. Ms Hartwell?”

“Not now, Codsworth.” It took a few tries to pry the cap off with her teeth, pocket said cap, and then give an experimental sniff to the drink. It’d be almost certainly flat, but oh, that smelt so, so sweet.

“Ma’am?”

“Codsworth, please just let me have _one_ victory for once!” Sammie wrinkled her nose at the robot, and then took a swig.

_It was everything she ever dreamed of and more_. She allowed her shoulders to slump and closed her eyes, ignoring the protesting clicks of her Pip-Boy’s Geiger counter because this was quite possibly the first step towards making being frozen for two centuries _worth it_. And to think, that no wastelander had had the thought to loot this one vending machine right there in plain sight? Even if just for the caps on the bottles?

“Ma-”

_KER-CRATSH!_

“ **SSWWWWAAAANNN!!** ”

The entire world seemed to reverberate for a moment, and Sammie – paused halfway through a gulp of drink – stared blankly out of the side of her eye while her brain failed to comprehend the overgrown mass of green muscle, rope, broken wood, and swan boat fragments that was tearing toward her.

_Oh_.

“WHISKEY TANGO FOX _TROT_!!?!” The Nuka fell from her grip, and by the time it shattered (tragically spilling its priceless liquid contents across the pavement), Sammie had already scooped Righteous Authority up from where she had placed it and _sprinted_ around the entrance of the subway station, kicked through the door, and tumbled across the tiled floor of the entryway to slam unceremoniously into a turnstile.

Falling limp, Sammie groaned, and when she cracked her eyes open it was to the sight of Codsworth hovering over her whilst her hat drifted to the floor behind him.

“Now _marm_ , was that _really_ worth it?”

“Yes,” she croaked, “and if you ever mention this again I’m having you scrapped for parts.”

All three of Codsworth’s optical apertures constricted, and he waved his eyestalks in a way that was suspiciously reminiscent of someone rolling their eyes, but before anything further could be said an uproar of laughter drifted up the escalator. Sammie sat up and pressed herself to the turnstile, switching the laser rifle on and holding her breath so she could listen in, while Codsworth hovered closer to the ground.

“Ahahahah! Sounds like the swan just claimed another victim! Oh man, that never gets old!”

“Joining Skinny Malone’s gang has gotta’ be the best thing that I ever did. I mean look at this place! Secure, food everywhere, and even regular chances to have a good laugh at someone else’s expense with that big ol’ oaf outside!”

The laughter flared up again, and Sammie gave Codsworth a sideways glance before nodding toward the door at the end of the escalators. She got up into a crouch and started slowly picking her way down one metal step at a time, training her sights on the doorway while Codsworth got into position just next to it.

“I still say Malone’s weak. I mean, we caught that detective snooping around, and what does he do? Locks ‘im up is what. Like he ain’t got the balls to just kill ‘im.” Sammie’s breath hitched, and she smirked. So Nick Valentine was still alive? There was some good news, though in her current rattled mindset it didn’t quite make up for losing the Nuka.

“Weeeelll… Don’t let his new girl hear that. Or she’ll start swinging that bat of hers at your face until there ain’t no face left!” The collective voices murmured in agreement, their previous mirth replaced with sheepish caution. Sammie made a mental note to keep an eye out for a woman with a baseball bat as she levelled her sights on a man sitting on a bench across from the entrance. She must mean business if she were able to scare a bunch of mobsters like that.

For a moment Sammie wondered if she should try to take the diplomatic approach, or pretend to join the gang, but every time she had attempted a similar stunt over the past few weeks with disastrous result flashed through her head in response. She sighed, and rolled her eyes. Fuck it.

She fired.

“What the-!” A few voices rang out in surprise, but they were all drowned out by her first target’s brutally short scream of pain as god-knows-how-many kilowatts of laser energy atomised his face. Next was the sound of guns cocking and clambering footsteps as the other guards ran for the door she had fired through. Sammie shot a few more times once another man – a ghoul from the looks of it – made the mistake of running straight at said door instead of sneaking up around cover. His submachine gun only got off three shots before he too slumped to the floor, two holes in his fancy checked shirt and the rest starting to burn away.

The remaining two were smarter, suddenly swinging around each side of the door with their guns at the ready. They probably would have gotten Sammie, too, if it weren’t for the fact she had put the exact same plan into place – instead of shooting up the woman crouched on the escalator, they each screamed out high pitched wails as they were both consumed by flame filling the entire doorway, Codsworth gleefully informing them that tonight’s dinner would be barbeque.

One more laser shot and a grisly buzzsaw swipe saw both fall silent.

Sammie took a few rapid breaths and stood up, peeking through the door and stepping over the sizzling bodies with a grimace, once it appeared that all immediate threats had been dispatched.

“Alright then… Four down, only potentially dozens more to go…”

 

* * *

 

“It’s such a shame that Sir isn’t here! Oh, how he would have loved to pick through all of these perfectly good suits!” Codsworth lamented over a dead body, while Sammie nudged its shoe with the muzzle of her sniper rifle to make absolutely sure it was in fact a _dead_ body. His words left a sour taste in her throat.

“Mmm… Though I think the suit stores Nate liked to frequent tended to have stock that was less… Shredded and on fire.” She glanced to another triggerman across the subway tunnel who had fallen to Codsworth’s flamethrower, his formerly spotless tuxedo now little more than kindling. Sammie wrinkled her nose and started making her way down the tracks again, partially wanting to keep moving so as to not start thinking about Nate more, and partially out of _not_ wanting to remain there once the smell of burning flesh started to permeate the area.

In stark contrast to the blood-spattered subway tunnel, the platform further behind her was completely clean of bodies: she had dispatched the mooks lounging about in there by wiring up a bottlecap mine to one of their own bombs, repositioning the bathroom scales that had been repurposed into a pressure plate, and then luring the entire group up the stairs with a few well-placed bullets and shrill insults. Most of them had managed to hop, skip, and jump their way around the rigged explosives while Sammie retreated around a corner, but all it took was for just one dumbarse to not notice that the scales had been moved.

It went without saying that the state of the stairwell _afterwards_ had been comparable to some of the worst she had seen in Alaska. It also went without saying that Nate wouldn’t have been able to loot any fashionable suits from those remains.

There was one guard by the vault door, holding his gun at the subway tunnel with his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“For the last time! Did! Fucking! Kevin! Stumble! Into one! Of! The tripwires! _Again_?!” He was answered with a .308 round through his cranium.

“Ms Sammie? Nice shot!”

Codsworth floated on ahead while Sammie wrestled with her bandolier to swap weapons back to Righteous Authority, muttering curses to herself as she walked. The laser rifle wasn’t much better in tight spaces like this than the musket had been, but she was just going to have to deal with it for now. Maybe when she got back to Diamond City she’d have looted enough caps off of the gangsters to pay Arturo to try swapping the stock out for a pistol grip and perhaps shave a few centimetres off the barrel – laser pistols weren’t much less accurate than their rifle counterparts, and having something holstered to her hip instead of having to swap what was on her back all the time would be a godsend.

“So. Vault One-Fourteen.” Codsworth bobbed before the massive, flecked yellow monolith that was the vault door, one of his optics swivelling about to consider Sammie while his other two remained trained on it. “I always wandered when I would finally get to see one of these up close, but… You _are_ alright with going into another one? After what happened..?”

Sammie nodded solemnly, walking up to the door controls and flipping the guard off the manual override switch.

“I have to be Codsworth. Dwelling on the past won’t get me anywhere.” Her voice sounded flat – _felt_ flat – but she drew the plug from her Pip-Boy and connected it to the controls without a second thought. A siren sounded and Sammie once again thanked her lucky stars that she had found the wrist-mounted computer, readying her rifle. There was no doubt that the high-pitched squealing of the opening mechanisms would attract attention.

“Why’s that thing so loud? Hello?! That you Skinny? Darla? …Oh shi–!” The lone, brown-haired man who wandered in to investigate grabbed for his pistol, but against an opponent who already had her rifle at the ready, it was too little, too late. Another ghoul came running not soon after, and he actually sent a few bullets whizzing past Sammie from behind the safety of another doorframe, sending her scrambling for cover behind a metal crate with a yelp.

They exchanged pot-shots a few times, neither willing to leave the relative safety of their respective environmental shields. Until Codsworth casually floated up to the triggerman’s door and flipped the switch to close it just as he leaned through it to line up his sights again. Three-thousand pounds of hydraulic pressure behind two-inch-thick steel had predictable results.

Sammie couldn’t watch.

“Sometimes I wonder if your CPU took a few stray cosmic rays over the years…” Peeking out from behind her metal crate, Sammie mused out loud as Codsworth meandered back over to her side.

“Something the matter, ma’am?”

“Oh, nothing,” Sammie answered, ejecting the microfusion cell from Righteous Authority and slotting a fresh one in while she checked the remaining doors. One led to a security room with nothing of particular interest, and the other…

“Locked. Argh, of course.” She jiggled the switch a few times to see if she could somehow force it if she angled it correctly, only to finally let out a sight. Codsworth offered to try sawing through the door, but his buzzsaw wasn’t exactly industrial grade and she didn’t have any replacements lying about. It looked like the blood-‘n’-guts door would have to be it, then.

The next two hours or so were largely more of the same: Sammie did take a few stray bullets and even a full laser blast at one point, but the combat armour she had picked up at Cambridge Police Station meant that it proved to not be anything more than a couple of Stimpaks and hiding in a side room could handle. Speaking of Stimpaks, there were more than just a couple strewn about the vault, which Sammie shamelessly stuffed into every pocket she could spare. This was more stims than she had ever seen in one place, so there was no way she was going let them go by her now.

She even came across a storage room filled to the brim with old foodstuffs at one point, only to find that about half of boxes were empty and had been just put back on the shelf instead of properly disposed of. Sammie helped herself to a packet of YumTum Devilled Eggs as quickly as she could before moving on: Because fuck two-hundred-year-old, raw Cram.

While there had been no sign of the detective yet, she was starting to get a clearer picture of how things worked in Vault 114. Everything pointed to the fact that this Skinny Malone and his boys had gone and gotten right comfortable in the unfinished vault – too comfortable. Compared to the guys on guard duty out on the subway tracks and in the station, no one inside seemed to suspect that anyone could possibly waltz right on in and start shooting. To be fair, Sammie decided that they probably had good reason to think so: She had yet to see any Pip-Boys other than the one she had found anywhere about the Commonwealth, so unless someone who the gang _knew_ had the ability to open the blast door was about, they were mostly safe to let their guard down.

Another detail that didn’t go by her was just _how_ comfortable the vault was. Sammie had started to speculate about what was up when she couldn’t find anything resembling the pods from Vault 111, or that the place wasn’t immersed in a constant, deathly chill, so had taken a peek at a few terminals to satisfy her curiosity whenever she was sure she’d be safe for a minute or two. As it turned out, not all of Vault-Tec’s investments were the same, and this one had not been designed as a giant freezer, but rather to be as uncomfortable to live in as possible.

It was still a mansion by the new world’s standards, though.

Standing watch by a hole in the ground she had sent Codsworth down to investigate, Sammie found herself mulling over this new information. What might the other vaults have contained? Would she and Nate both have lived into their old age, watched Shaun grow up, and died peacefully in their sleep decades ago if they had been accepted into a different one, like this? Or might have things gone just as bad – or even worse – as Vault 111 did?

“Looks all clear down here, ma’am! I even found a ladder should we need to get out this way,” Codsworth called up from the bottom of the service shaft, and Sammie thanked him before cautiously lowering herself down.

Best not to think about that and focus on the reality of the present.

A few minutes later, Sammie found herself holding up a hand to silently halt Codsworth, then reached over her shoulder to unsling her sniper rifle while peering around a corner.

This room was massive, unnecessarily so in fact, its multiple levels strewn with various debris and construction equipment. Sammie’s attention was on the top level, more specifically the wall opposite the hallway she was hiding in, where a large window in the shape of the Vault-Tec company logo held a commanding view of the entire setup. Before it stood a man in yet another fancy suit, who appeared to be laughing.

“How you doing in there, Valentine? Feeling hungry? Want a _snack_?”

Gloating, in fact.

Sammie paused, paying more close attention now as she brought the scope up to her eye for a better look. “ _Looks like I’ve found my detective_ … _But who’s this guy?_ ” she thought. Perhaps this was the infamous Skinny Malone she had heard so much about?

“Keep talking, meat head!” Another voice, this time from a speaker situated next to the window – presumably Nick Valentine, locked in the room on the other side? “It’ll give Skinny Malone more time to think about how he’s going to bump you off!”

That meant the guy in front of the window was just another one of Skinny’s henchmen, then. Sammie decided that was all she needed to know.

“Don’t give me that crap, Valentine. You know nottin’: You _got_ nott–”

With a loud bang, the guard’s head became a new paint job for the window and surrounding walls.

“Jesus! What the hell–?!” There was a moment of silence from behind the cell’s speakers while Sammie and Codsworth made a run for a set of stairs on the left side of the room. “Huh. Well, if someone finally turned on the in-house entertainment, I could get used to this… Hello?! Anyone there?”

Sammie had re-holstered her rifle when she and Codsworth arrived at the scene of the murder, the woman pulling a face as she stepped over the still-spurting body to try and see in the window. She frowned, balling up a sleeve of her jacket to try and wipe away some of the blood and see in.

Oh god. Ew. No. That’s just smearing brain all over it _worse_.

“Detective Valentine? Is that you in there?” She was left with the audio option.

“Yeah, that’s me. And hey, I don’t know who you are, but we’ve got about three minutes before they realise mister brains-all-over-the-window here ain’t coming back: _Get this door open!_ ”

“On it!” She navigated around the body again and did a quick once-over of the door while Codsworth opted to drag the lifeless corpse out of the way. There wasn’t a switch, but a terminal instead, which she quickly booted up, tapping her foot impatiently.

 

**PASSWORD REQUIRED**

**>  **

 

Shit.

“You’ve gotta hack that terminal to open up the door!” The detective called out, not that his input was terribly helpful just now. “If you get locked out, don’t worry! The system should reset itself if you perform a reboot.”

Three minutes to hack a terminal? Oh yeah! _Sure_ , she won’t worry! It wasn’t like the only thing she had ever “hacked” had been a dead tree in Nate’s mother’s front yard. How was she supposed to break into a _computer_? Her hands shaking with a combination of frustration and panic, Codsworth’s voice cut through Sammie like scissors through a rubber band ball.

“Ah, ma’am? It would appear this sorry chap had the passcode written down.”

“What? Really? Give it here, quick!” Codsworth lifted a scrap of paper with his manipulator claw and Sammie all but grabbed it, holding it up to the light to reveal the word “cardio” in barely-legible chickenscratch handwriting. It was worth a short: Sammie typed it in with baited breath, and she let out a relieved sigh when the terminal accepted the password.

“Ahahaha! Yes! _Thank you_ , stupid thugs with memory problems!” Yet again the 50 IQ points shared between Malone’s underlings had proved helpful, and from here it was a simple matter of typing in the command to unlock the door. She stepped back and thanked Codsworth for checking the body while the doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss, and once the metal frame had stopped moving, Sammie nodded in satisfaction and stepped through…

…Straight into an unmistakable pair of soul-piercing yellow rings.


	3. The Bright Heart

No.

“Heh, while I love the irony of the whole ‘reverse damsel-in-distress’ scenario…”

No way.

“…Question is, why did our heroine risk like and limb for an old private eye?”

The detective couldn’t be a synth.

“Well?”

_Anything_ but that.

Yet that was exactly what was standing before her. A synth, dressed up like it had stepped straight out of one of those old crime movies, eyeing her curiously with a half-finished cigarette hanging between skeletal, claw-like fingers. Matching Ellie’s description of Nick Valentine perfectly.

“I–” In hindsight, it was probably for the best that Sammie had been too dumbfounded to respond properly. Screaming like a teenaged girl and shooting as a first impression would have gotten her nowhere.

“You gonna say something? I mean, I’ve had worse reactions than the silent treatment, but after a certain point it gets a touch ridiculous,” Nick popped his eyebrows at her and flashed a grin, and Sammie wondered if the gesture was somehow supposed to be comforting. Maybe it would have been, on a face made of actual flesh and blood. Maybe not. But that didn’t matter right now – what mattered was that she had to stop standing there like a deer in yellow headlights and bloody _say something_.

“I… I was hoping you could help me find someone, but it’s… Complicated,” Sammie said, finally having found her voice. The moment was short-lived however, because how could she possible continue to explain? She didn’t have the foggiest idea of where those people had gone or who they might be, and that wasn’t considering the fact that she didn’t know how long it had even been since then.

Fortunately, Valentine either didn’t notice her hesitation or chose to ignore it. “Hrmm… Well I’ve done jobs with less. Somehow ‘nice and simple’ never makes it onto the menu in my world,” he mused, flicking the cigarette to the floor and stamping it out. “For example, I’ve been cooped up in here for weeks. Turns out the runaway daughter I came here to find wasn’t kidnapped. She’s Skinny Malone’s new flame, and she’s got a _mean_ streak.”

Two and two popped together in Sammie’s head and she raised an eyebrow, thankful for the change in topic serving as a distraction from the detective’s identity. “Mean streak? …There wouldn’t happen to be a baseball bat involved here, would there?”

“A baseball bat that’s seen more than its fair share of beatings, and nowhere near enough care to keep the splinters in check,” Nick grumbled, glancing away for a moment and running a finger along the tattered material of the left side of his face. Unable to pry her eyes away, and not for lack of trying, Sammie prayed for another distraction. “Anyway, you’ve got troubles, and I’m glad to help, but now ain’t the time. Let’s blow this joint, _then_ we’ll talk.”

Sammie nodded silently, stepping aside both so the synth could exit the room and so that she could keep her distance from him. Valentine rounded the corner, nodding to acknowledge Codsworth who had up until this point been hovering behind Sammie in complete silence, absolutely no help when she had been tongue-tied. The possibility that the robot had been just as shocked as she was crossed Sammie’s mind while Nick knelt down to retrieve a crude pistol off of his former tormenter’s headless body.

“I’ll be taking this…” He checked the gun was loaded and quickly pocketed any extra bullets he could find, a moment which Sammie took to glance at Codsworth. The robot boggled at her back, his optical apertures wide, and she opened her mouth to say something but was unable to come up with any words before the synth was back on his feet, nodding for Sammie to follow before taking off.

Thankfully, he did most of the talking for the next couple of minutes, explaining the situation with Skinny Malone’s gang and their acquisition of the vault as the three of them jogged through hallways and up and down stairs through the metal labyrinth. Sammie mostly switched off to the details, focusing on getting herself together enough to be able to talk properly later, and more importantly to start paying attention to her surroundings again instead of repeatedly running through ArcJet Systems in her head. She didn’t want to go and get her own braincase exploded by a mobster rounding a corner because she had been lost in thought.

“Hold up. I hear some of them coming…” Speak of the devil.

“The hell’s taking so long… Hey! Dino! Quit harassing that detective and get down here!”

“There they are. How do you wanna play this?” Nick’s voice was low, almost a whisper. No, actually a whisper. It was only now that Sammie properly registered that he had a proper, human-like voice rather than the text-to-speech monotones she had encountered with Danse.

Like with many other questions the wasteland raised, however, it would have to be filed away to be asked and answered later while Sammie peeked around a door as best she could without giving away their position. Four guys from the looks of it, not exactly an even match-up. “Stealth-y, snipe-y, preferably… Codsworth? Do you think you can substitute ‘Vault-Tec’ into your usual spiel for a few lines?”

She could almost feel Nick’s scrutinising stare boring into the back of her head, and Codsworth let out a dramatic simulated sigh. “If I _must_ …” The robot complained, and with a whirr of his engine he floated past Sammie and the increasingly curious detective, out the door, and into the middle of the room with a friendly wave to get the men’s attention before they could see what had happened to Dino and start becoming suspicious. “Hello there, kind sirs! Service protocol fifty-nine x-seven-b has been initiated: As a collaboration between Vault-Tec Corporation and General Atomics International, I am here to assess the wellbeing of all vault residents! How is your stay treating you this fine day?”

Understandably, the first reaction out of Skinny Malone’s followers was bewilderment.

“Uh, where’d that robot come from?”

“What?”

“I don’t remember there bein’ any robots in ‘ere.”

Sammie chambered a round, knelt, and shuffled up to the side of the door, peeking around it through the scope to see what was going on and assess which one to shoot first. Unseen by her, Nick smirked in recognition of the plan and readied his own looted gun, Sammie becoming aware of him moving into position only when her skin began to prickle and her throat clenched in response to his coat brushing against her back.

“I repeat, sirs: How is your stay treating you this fine day?” Codsworth continued to confound and confuse, and Sammie tried very hard to focus on keeping her aim steady instead of the fact that the synth behind her could just as easily break her neck as help out.

“Oh! I get it!” One of the men, a ghoul, suddenly beamed and held up his finger, causing his companions to flinch (and Codsworth, but thankfully no one saw that). “Dino must’ve found and activated it. That just leaves the question of where he and the rest of the robots are!” Everyone else’s eyes lit up, and one even clapped and tip-toed on the spot in excitement.

“Seriously? Oh man! I’ve always wanted my own Mister Hand–” He didn’t finish his sentence, because one bullet later he was too busy crying out in surprise at his friend crumpling over with a hand pressed to the new wound in their chest, followed by screaming and attempting to flee when Codsworth lit up his flamethrower and charged. Sammie reloaded and heard Nick’s pistol dispense lead into a goon who had started running around in circles in a vain attempt to extinguish his tuxedo, then she shot the one person with enough presence of mind to pull a gun while Codsworth chased down the runner with a vicious slash of his sawblade.

“Well, that’s one way to get the job done. Nothing quite like a little crafty misdirection.” Nick chuckled while reloading, and Sammie responded to his playful wink by gulping and busying herself with swapping her weapons. Valentine’s mirth left him, and he nodded to Codsworth’s blood-soaked sawblade while the robot hovered back over instead. “Seems your pal here prefers the hard and loud approach, though. Too bad for whoever has to clean up the floors...”

“Mister Valentine, providing _free advertising_ for a company whose relationship with General Atomics International relies on their use of clearly labelled General Atomics products within their operations would be a severe breach of the partnership contract,” Codsworth retorted, “After spouting _that_ nonsense, I simply could not allow them to spread such misinformation! I am sure you can understand that.”

“You can be sure I do,” Nick commented dryly, and Sammie stood back up once she had tested her backpack was sitting right, “Anyway, you ready? Let’s keep moving.”

Sammie didn’t argue, muttering agreement with a nod and following after the detective with Codsworth in tow. More of Malone’s henchmen occasionally got in the way and were dispatched in turn, and Sammie actually found some gratitude for their intervention as the adrenaline rush of combat drowned out the coiling sickness in her stomach. In fact, it worked so well that when they came across a malfunctioning door and Valentine responded by pulling a screwdriver from his coat to remove the control panel and then near-effortlessly cracked the locking mechanism by reaching into the wall cavity with stripped-bare metal fingers, Sammie was overcome with fascination rather than unease.

“…There we are. Hell of a lot easier to do when the lock isn’t on the other side,” the synth mumbled, picking out some loose wires that had gotten caught in his knuckles and pocketing the screwdriver. Sammie glanced between his hand and the disassembled door controls. A joke came to mind, but she had to fight to force it out past her lips despite her improving mood.

She swallowed the lump that had been threatening to become a permanent resident in her throat and cracked a lopsided abomination of an attempted grin. “Well, if you had that trick up your sleeve, what did you ever need me for?”

It mustn’t have come out right, because his response was to quirk an eyebrow at her in what might have been confusion. That turned into a sly, knowing grin, and Sammie felt a flood of relief when he snickered to himself and continued on, confirming that she hadn’t just gone and made herself out to be an idiot on top of being freaked out by Valentine’s robotic nature.

“Skinny Malone and the rest of his boys are waiting for us somewhere around here… I can feel it.” A few minutes filled with staircases had passed in silence save for Nick commenting about the vault designers being fitness instructors before he spoke up again, and this time Sammie made sure to listen.

“Skinny Malone. I’ve been constantly hearing that name since getting here, but have yet to be able to put an actual face to it,” she muttered, checking the charge level on the cell currently loaded in Righteous Authority. It was sort of low, but not quite enough to justify swapping it out just yet.

“The name’s, uh, _ironic_.” Nick glanced over his shoulder, one visible glowing eye flicking down at the rifle and then back up to Sammie’s face. “Don’t let that fool you, though. He’s dangerous,” the synth warned, then focused forward again to round a corner gun-first and check left and right. “This room’s clear, and another locked door… Just an old padlock on the switch this time, huh? Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Sammie checked back down the stairwell and then followed after, turning her back to Nick so she could keep watch while he tried to pick the lock. Only it ended up being Codsworth who kept an eye out for any unwanted guests, because Sammie was unable to keep her attention away from the synth and his… _unorthodox_ method of using the thin, spindly fingers of his metal hand to try and manipulate the tumblers.

“ _Well, I… I guess if you’ve got the tools you might as well use them,_ ” she thought. It certainly beat keeping a stock of needles or bobby pins or whatever other thin pieces of metal you could find on your person.

“Okay, I got it,” Nick whispered, and Sammie shook her head to put her mind back on track and tightened the grip on her rifle at his hushed tone. “But I hear big, _fat_ footsteps on the other side. Once we step through this door, get ready for anything.”

He unhooked the lock from where it was keeping a cover clamped over the vault door controls, and waited for Codsworth to move closer with his weaponised arms raised and at the ready before looking to Sammie.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Sammie said, and she pointed her weapon dead ahead as soon as the doors slid open.

Four figures who had been conversing whipped about to face the door the very second they noticed it opening, their own weapons at the ready, and as Sammie cautiously stepped through with Valentine and Codsworth in tow she saw that the detective hadn’t been wrong about the name ‘Skinny’ being ironic. Said walking oxymoron’s eyes widened at the sight of the synth, and his face contorted into a sneer.

“Nicky! What’re you doin’?! You come into my house, shoot up my guys! You have _any_ idea how much this is gonna set me back?”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your two-timing dame, Skinny,” the detective drawled, sounding almost bored in spite of having two out of three tommy guns aimed at his head. “You ought to tell her to write home more often.”

“Awww… Poor little Valentine!” It was the other person Sammie had been hearing about – the notorious “Woman With A Baseball Bat” – who spoke this time. Dear god, her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. “Ashamed you got beat up by a girl?! I’ll just run back home to daddy, shall I?”

Nick opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by Malone. “Should’ve left it alone, Nicky,” he growled, and if not for one of the henchmen having his gun pointed at her, Sammie would have started to wonder if she were somehow invisible right now. “This ain’t the old neighbourhood: In this vault, _I’m_ king of the castle, you hear me? And I ain’t letting some private _dick_ shut us down now that I finally got a good thing goin’!”

“I told you we should’ve just killed him!” The lady screeched, her wrath turning upon Skinny and causing him to wince. “But then you had to get all _sentimental_. All that stupid crap about the ‘old times’!”

“Darla! I’m _handling this_! Skinny Malone’s always got things under control!” This was quickly turning into a shouting match. Sammie was getting the impression that Skinny and Darla’s relationship wasn’t all quite sunshine and rainbows, but she didn’t have the chance to make any deeper assessment.

“Oh yeah? Then what’s this lady doing here, huh?” Darla chided, her voice momentarily transforming into all the smooth silk of someone who had just pulled out their trump card, pointing at Sammie with her bat. “Valentine must’ve brought her here to rub us all out!”

All four pairs of eyes before Sammie turned on her, and she suddenly felt very aware of the fact that her armour didn’t exactly have perfect coverage.

“Heeeyy, now! No way. I’m just here for the detective,” she said, eyebrows shooting up and smiling as innocently as she could while pointing a laser rifle. She needed to deflect attention away from herself if she was going to come up with a way out of this, and more information. “What’s the deal with you people and him, anyway?”

“Like I said. Darla’s a runaway, and her father wanted me to bring her back home. Except it turned out she skipped town to be with my _old pal_ , Skinny Malone. Mob boss.” Nick spoke up, giving Sammie a sideways glance and then returning to leering at the mobster and his goons. “Never thought you’d manage to scrape together a big enough crew to take over a vault, though. Guess life’s full of surprises.”

“H-hey! Who’s running this show here?” Skinny suddenly blurted out, obviously not taking too kindly to Nick stealing his reins on the conversation. He scowled at the synth, then fixed Sammie with narrowed eyes, sizing her up, but didn’t make any indication that would move the barrel of his gun away from Nick. “You got something to say, woman, you say it to _me_!”

“Alright, alright! I’m just trying to figure out the story here,” Sammie insisted, “This is all just a big misunderstanding! I didn’t even know about your girlfriend here, let alone that you and Nick knew each other.”

To that, Malone actually laughed, earning himself a glare from Darla. Sammie caught the detective rolling his eyes in her peripheral vision, when the mob boss finally recollected himself and pointed at Nick almost casually. “Oh man, you don’t know the start of it! This troublemaker here used to be a real headache back in the day, before we got kicked outta’ the old neighbourhood. We must’ve done this dance a hundred times…”

He shook his head, then shrugged. “Enemies are kind of the closest thing you get to friends in these parts.”

“Skinny…” Darla growled, hefting her bat.

“I’m on it!” The man yelled back, then faced Sammie once more. “Now _anyway_ – quit stallin’! You gonna talk, or not?”

“Like I said, Skinny, just a massive misunderstanding,” Sammie said, sort of wishing that she had managed to buy herself more time to figure out how to sway one or both of them over. It also didn’t help having Valentine’s distractingly inhumane gaze silently studying her and her actions either, breaking her chain of thought every time she caught a glimpse of yellow out of the corner of her eye. “Any… Uh, ‘rubbing’ was done purely out of self-defence, you know that! So, you let us walk and we won’t come back. Heck, Nick was just here to find Darla, right? We could even have him let her family know that she’s safe and sound, and… And to not come knocking!”

Sammie thought it was a pretty convincing argument. She and the detective left without any extra bullets lodged in them, Skinny and Darla got to keep doing their thing without further interference from the latter’s family, and said family got the closure that their daughter wasn’t in fact kidnapped. Win-win-win, right?

Malone didn’t seem to be quite following, if the way his jaw was hanging open at an odd angle was any indication.

“You… You and Nick shot all of my crew, and you expect to just... Argh! No!” He shook his head and coughed. “Don’t you get it? Even if you _did_ do that, all the other crews in the area will see this as a weakness. And then, they’ll come for me! So I’m sorry, but we’ve gotta’ give you both the hard goodbye!”

Darla gave possibly the most psychotic grin ever grinned, Sammie’s heart dropped into her shoes, and everything that happened next seemed to go in slow motion. Her own first instinct was to get the hell out of dodge and _behind something_ , but Sammie had already had a tommy gun pointed at her stomach by one of the guards throughout this entire conversation. She’d be dead before she could move.

Except, that wasn’t the case. Rather than the repeated _ratta-tata-tatta_ of automatic fire and accompanying hail of lead, the first thing Sammie heard was a single gunshot to her left. She hit the floor and rolled, time returning to normal with the cacophony of combat while she righted herself behind some shelves and metal crates. Peeking up over them, she was treated to the sight of the man who had been keeping her covered crumpling to the floor before he could even pull the trigger, a gaping red hole in the side of his skull.

“Heave-ho!” Codsworth lunged forwards with a yell and a wall of flame jetting from one of his limbs while the other spun up, and Sammie caught a glimpse of Nick pressing himself up against the relative safety of a concrete pillar over the other side of the room. Bullets peppered the other side of his cover, and once Codsworth had advanced upon their remaining attackers and distracted them from the shooting, Sammie noticed there were a couple of new holes in the synth’s coat and a wisp of smoke trailing up from the tip of his pistol.

The implication left her numb.

“Ouch! I think?” Wood clanking on metal knocked Sammie out of it, and she lifted Righteous Authority to aim over the supply crate. Codsworth flailed about in the air wildly, knocked off balance by a surprisingly beefy swing from Darla’s bat and into a wall while his gyroscopes struggled to keep him upright, and Sammie saw red when the sequin-clad woman she made to chase after the Mister Handy.

She took a few more pot-shots than what was strictly necessary, and Darla screeched when one of the lasers clipped her calf and hit the floor. Just in time to eat one of Righteous Authority’s super-special extra-strength blasts that Sammie had been saving up, who bared her teeth in a sneer: _No one_ damages _her_ robot, dammit!

“No!” Skinny wailed, and Sammie ducked back behind her crate with a curse, covering her ears when it came under concentrated fire. Once the mobster had to reload she popped back out to take her own shots in retaliation only to find he had found his own shelter, Valentine’s bullets pinging off of an overturned set of lockers whenever he risked leaning away from his own pot-marked pillar. The shoot-out probably could have continued like this for a few minutes, too, if not for Codsworth finally recovering and flushing Malone and his remaining flunky out into the open under threat of roasting and/or dismemberment.

A flash of red turned the remaining ghoul to dust, and a combination of burns, cuts, and puncture wounds finally did Skinny Malone in as well.

Panting, Sammie slumped back against her crate and sighed. Why couldn’t things see a peaceful resolution even _once_?

“Hey! You okay over there?” Nick yelled across the room, and Sammie held up a hand and waved it to indicate she was still alive, using her other to haphazardly eject the microfusion cell from her rifle and fumble a new one into the power port.

“That woman does indeed have a mean streak, just like you said, Mister Valentine! I don’t think I’ve ever had quite so many of my actuator coils knocked off-centre in a single blow like that before!” Codsworth sounded livid, and once Sammie hauled herself back up and out from her hiding spot she saw that the robot’s eyestalks were gyrating wildly. His outer casing didn’t appear to be damaged, but who knew what was going on inside? “Downright horrible, I say!”

Nick was standing nearby, sternly eyeing the charred figure on the ground – still clutching a scorched baseball bat – while loading his remaining bullets into the looted gun’s magazine. “It’s going to be an awkward conversation with Darla’s parents when I tell them their daughter bit the big one… Well, at least the case is closed.”

Sammie cleared her throat, and both of her mechanical compatriots looked up. “Uh, are you guys alright?”

“Nothing a few hours in self-maintenance mode won’t fix, ma’am!”

“Caught a few shots in the stomach,” Nick commented with an off-putting lack of concern, sticking a finger through a hole in his shirt to prove the point, “One of the situations where not having an actual stomach comes in handy.”

Sammie cringed, probably not quite so much out of concern, but because that confirmed what she suspected earlier about him shooting the man who had been aiming at _her_ instead of anyone pointing a gun at him first. He had just directly harmed himself by instead looking out for someone he had literally just met – _saved_ _her_ – and Sammie couldn’t know what to think or say about that.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to say anything. Once he was done with checking his gun, Nick turned his attention to the much larger body a bit further away by the vault door, and Sammie reluctantly followed his gaze. “Can’t really say the same for Skinny Malone, though. Hard to hit anything _but_ stomach on that one. D’ya think he’s lighter or heavier with all those holes in him? Bullets probably add a few ounces…”

“I dunno…” Sammie said, then upon a proper inspection of the wounds corrected herself: “ _Probably_ not enough to counter limb removal, though.”

Nick scoffed, an odd sound underlain by a mechanical whizz, and removed a cigarette from an inner coat pocket. “Good night, _sweet prince_. Here’s to all the old days,” he mused, lighting it up and tapping it to drop a small amount of ash next to Skinny’s new resting place. Before popping it between his lips, the synth tilted his head toward Codsworth and then Sammie. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. There’s a service ladder that should take us right to the surface around here somewhere, then we can figure out exactly where you and I stand with all of this.”

Sammie stared back, and rather than try to croak out a fully formed sentence through the storm of questions fighting to reach her lips, meekly nodded. She had no desire to stay down here any longer than necessary.


	4. Falling in to Place

It took a lot of co-operation and more than just a few minutes to awkwardly haul Codsworth up the ladder and out of the subway tunnels, and Sammie emerged back into the world to be greeted by puddles and the clean scent that followed a passing shower. Sliding the manhole cover back over their escape route, she took a deep breath of the fresh air, happy to have gotten out of that mess with all of her body parts still where they were supposed to be.

“Ahhh! Look at that Commonwealth sky! Never thought anything so naturally ominous could end up looking so inviting...” Judging by Valentine’s reaction, he shared the sentiment. Clouds overhead or not, seeing the sky _at all_ was probably good enough after being locked up like he had been, and Sammie nodded absent-mindedly in agreement.

“ _Just… What are you?_ ” she mused to herself while the detective checked that Codsworth hadn’t jammed any of his limbs after getting flung up the ladder, and then he was turning to Sammie with a smile that was simultaneously warm and chilling.

“Thanks for getting me out, kid,” he started, expression turning questioning much to Sammie’s relief. “Just how did you know where to find me, anyway? Not many people knew where I went.”

“Your secretary sent me,” Sammie answered.

“Ellie did? Huh. I should give her a raise…” The synth rubbed his chin in thought, frowning at the cigarette resting between his fingers, then shrugged and flashed a mischievous smirk. “Well, either way, now that we’re not at an immediate risk of getting turned into swiss cheese, I should probably ask your name. It’d be shamefully rude to not be able to properly address _my saviour_.”

“Oh, I, uh.” Thrown off by a combination of his choice of phrasing and the sheer ridiculousness of a _synth_ playing the suave detective act to a T starting to sink in, Sammie stumbled over her words. “I-it’s Sammie, Hartwell.”

“Sammie, huh? Short for Samantha, I’m guessing?” Nick must have picked up on her discomfort, because he dropped the playfulness instantly and went with a more benign topic. Except his innocent question only triggered a thought that exponentially exuberated how utterly insane the past couple of hours had been, and every single little thing that had made Sammie question her own sanity since waking up in the freezer crashed down at once.

“Oh dear god, I _wish_!” Sammie burst out laughing, catching herself and doubling over to cover her face with her hands before she started to sound like a madwoman. Nick made a confused sound and Codsworth moved forward to ask if she was okay, so she held up a hand to silence him until she could get herself back under control. “Oh. Oh god… Sorry. It’s just. When my mother was pregnant, giving your kids _designer_ names was starting to become a fad.”

She fought down some last chuckles, straightening up to address a bedraggled face that was the perfect image of amused disbelief even with the holes in it, then cleared her throat. “Thankfully said fad never stuck, so I just got the shorthand treatment instead of anything worse: Apparently they were considering going with Zachariah if I had been a boy... Spelt with a _Y_.”

One of Nick’s eyebrows rose and he let out a tinny chuckle, his eyes quickly flicking up and down Sammie’s figure with a critical attentiveness that made her feel as if she had just been scanned and documented. A shudder dispelled the last remaining wisps of insane mirth from her system.

“Well, Miss Hartwell, a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Nick said, flicking more ash from the end of his cigarette. “Now, you mentioned something about a missing person? A complicated mess with no trace of where they’d gone?”

“Yes, that’s it. The whole reason I’m in this whole ordeal in the first place…” Sammie said flatly, and in reference to much more than just the events in Vault 114.

“Mmmhmm,” Nick hummed, lifting the cigarette to his lips but stopping himself. “That settles it then: I want you come back to my office in Diamond City, and give me all the details. Only when you’re ready of course – I think you’ve more than earned a chance to sit down and clear your head first.”

“Diamond City actually sounds really good right now,” Sammie thought out loud, looking back up at the overcast sky visible between the buildings towering on every side, and then checking the time on her Pip-Boy. It was coming up 4:30 pm, and while the clouds weren’t exactly the dark grey that signalled a storm incoming, she’d rather have a roof over her head if another drizzle started up. “Maybe if we get moving now we might get back by nightfall…”

“A sound plan, ma’am!” Codsworth added, two of his optics shifting from side to side nervously, “I don’t quite fancy finding out what might lurk around here after dark.”

“In these parts? You aren’t wrong, pal,” Nick confirmed, then stuck the smoke between his lips and finished his sentence around the filter: “I ‘ight know a shortcut or two, so ‘ollow me.”

As it turned out, Nick knew more than just “one or two” shortcuts. He led Sammie and Codsworth through what she had earlier thought was an impregnable gauntlet of raider camps via alleyways, fire escapes, and rooftops without a single gun being so much as waved in their general direction, all while pointing out which buildings to avoid because they often housed feral ghouls or antisocial wildlife. The synth seemed to know the Commonwealth like the back of his hand, right down to the social demographic details of which routes bandits ignored in favour of others because they didn’t expect anyone to take them: Which was exactly why he took them.

By the time they turned out onto a main street and could see Fenway Park in the distance, it was barely even sunset. Sammie wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with his navigational ability, or ashamed of how long it had taken her to trek across the financial district in the opposite direction that morning.

Waiting for the city gate to be raised while Nick conversed with some guards, she decided that she should cut herself some slack since she only had about two weeks of experience getting to know the new lay of the land. Heck, the fact she was even alive, especially after going on what amounted to a suicide mission taking on an entire gang on her near-lonesome, was probably something to be proud of.

That she didn’t feel any such pride said a depressing amount about the state of the Commonwealth, and her state of mind.

She followed the detective back to his office in silence, hands buried in her pockets and her mind threatening to be buried in a pit of doubt. Her making absolutely sure that Nick got back to his rightful place was more of a way to keep her thoughts in line, than out of any obligation or because it was the right thing to do.

“Ellie? Are you here?!” No sooner had the synth opened the door did he shout out to see if his secretary was home, and Sammie cringed at the sound of something heavy getting dropped upstairs as she followed him through the door.

“Nick!?” Ellie’s voice was shrill with disbelief, and a moment later she all but tumbled down the stairs in her haste to investigate. Nick grinned, and Sammie stepped back to give them both some space. “Oh god. It’s really you!”

“Well, it’s hard to mistake this mug for anyone else,” the detective responded dryly, and Ellie crossed her arms with a _hrmph_. Sammie was mildly surprised by this, having been partially expecting her to throw her arms around the synth based on her initial reaction to seeing him.

“If you keep laughing at death, then someday death’s going to laugh back,” the woman scolded. Dead serious, all traces of her earlier near-tearful joy having vanished. A second surprise came in the form of Nick’s reaction: The detective shrugged nonchalantly, and turned to Sammie and Codsworth, both stuffed awkwardly in the entryway, so that he could give them a smile.

“…Not as long as I’ve got a few friends to back me up. Now, are you two just going to gawk there until you get yelled at for being wallflowers, or are you gonna’ come on in?”

Sammie and the robot exchanged glances, then she awkwardly shuffled in to the increasingly more cramped space of the Detective Agency. Nick nodded approvingly and moved behind the desk to make way for them, and Ellie didn’t hesitate at all to grab Sammie by the hand and shake it enthusiastically the very moment she was free.

“You saved Nick, this agency, _and_ my job! I’m so sorry I was so rude to you before, and there’s no way I could thank you enough!”

“I-it’s okay! It’s not like–”

“As usual, Ms Hartwell is never alone in her endeavours!” Codsworth interrupted, sounding a touch indignant.

“ _And_ you too, Mister Handy,” Ellie let Sammie go and smiled, holding up a hand so that Codsworth could semi-shake it with his manipulator claw, “How could I possibly forget about your contribution?”

The robot’s antics did their usual trick to lighten Sammie’s mood, and with her earlier pondering forgotten she chuckled and finished her sentence. “Uh, well, it’s not like we could have done much about my case without a detective. No need to thank me.”

“Oh, your case! Of course! I, there’s just… One, small clerical thing we need to clear up,” Ellie held up her hands and quickly ducked back around the corner. Sammie blinked, glancing over her shoulder to see if Nick had any light to shed on what his secretary meant, but he had already opened one of the filing cabinets around the room and was engrossed in picking through the various folders. Footsteps on the stairs again summoned Sammie’s attention back just in time for a small leather messenger bag to be thrust into her hands. “Here. I know payment wasn’t exactly on the table when you went out to find him, but you deserve a reward for going to all of this trouble.”

“Woah, er, thanks.” Unsure what else to say or do, she held the bag up and jiggled it slightly, lifting her eyebrows at the clinking of caps inside. This could potentially keep her fed for a _week_.

Ellie beamed, and Sammie offered an awkward half-smile in return. When the silence started hitting that point where it was outstaying its welcome, the secretary’s smile faltered and she tapped her fingers together, assessing her next move carefully.

“You know… Uh, Sammie, was it?”

“Yes, what’s wrong?”

“I was just thinking… You were able to fight your way in and out of a vault full of Goodneighbour thugs… That– That takes a hell of a lotta’ luck or a hell of a lotta’ smarts!” she progressed to clasping her hands, a gesture that Sammie’s memory of college mock-trials suggested was just one step away from wringing them, “Soooo… If you’re ever looking for work in the future, Nick sure could use a new partner…”

“Wha–” Sammie’s jaw dropped mid-response, and judging the by the _swish_ of a manila folder slapping against the floor and papers fluttering behind her, it wasn’t the only thing dropped just then.

“Woah, woah, woah!”

“ _Partner?!_ That’s a bit–”

“One case at a time, Ellie!”

“– _Soon,_ to suggest? D-don’t you think?”

“Besides, our new friend needs our help first.”

All eyes fixed on Ellie, and for a painfully long moment the only sounds were the soft hum of Codsworth’s motor and the last few sheets of paper from Nick’s fallen case file floating to the ground. The woman very quickly started turning red.

“Uh, y’know. J-just an idea,” Ellie stuttered, voice rising an octave, “I-I’ll just be picking up my stuff! Good– good night!” And then she skipped back into the side hallway and was running up the stairs as quickly as her feet would take her.

“Well. It doesn’t sound like _too_ bad an idea to me.” Codsworth never missed a beat with his inappropriately timed observations, and Sammie simply didn’t have it in her right now to explain to him the faux pas that had just occurred.

“Aw, hell. Now the case is in shambles figuratively _and_ literally,” Nick muttered, placing his hands on his hips as he scowled at the pieces of paper scattered about his feet. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then addressed Sammie. “Sorry about that. I guess the stress of worrying about me got to Ellie more than I thought it would… Don’t let that sully your opinion of her, though. She’s a good girl with a good head on her shoulders.”

Sammie nodded slowly, and gestured to the papers weakly. “Do you, need help with..?”

“Oh, no. Don’t worry yourself about it,” Nick shook his head, “You’ve already had one hell of a day as is, and it’s not getting any earlier. Go get yourself a good night’s rest, and we can start on your case first thing in the morning if that’s the way you want to do things. You can also consider it already paid for – that’s the least I could do after you got me outta’ that jam.”

“Okay, thank you.” With an opportunity to get out of here, relief flooded over Sammie, bringing with it the full force of fatigue that had added up this day. “I’ll see you then, then.”

“Good day Mister Valentine. It was a pleasure to meet you!”

“You too, Codsworth. Keep up the good work looking after her, okay?” Nick said, lighting up a cigarette and watching Sammie carefully. “Also, one last thing: You’re doing a good job, Hartwell. I know the skin and the metal parts ain’t comforting, but the fact you’re even _trying_ to keep your opinions to yourself puts you ahead of most folks.”

Sammie flinched, a jolt shooting down her spine, then grimaced. “Ah, shit…” She groaned to herself, looking at her shoes because she was unable to meet the synth’s eyes even though they currently glowed with understanding softness rather than accusation. “It’s really that obvious, huh?”

“Well I’m not sure if you got the memo, but I _am_ a detective, Miss.” His chuckling turned to a snigger when Sammie failed in her attempt to prevent an amused smirk of her own from curling over her lips, and he waved her away with the hand that wasn’t preoccupied with the freshly lit smoke once she looked back up. “Go on, now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Sammie said her own goodbyes and followed Codsworth outside, and ended up having to spell out hers and Nick’s reactions to Ellie’s suggestion on the way back to the Dugout through the darkening alleys. Their arrival at the inn was accompanied by a quantity of glances, whispers, and pointed fingers from the other patrons that had increased unnervingly in comparison to that which she experienced the day before, and so Sammie couldn’t have passed by the bar to get to her rented room and put a locked door between herself and Diamond City’s residents any faster if she had tried.

Resultantly, she failed to pick up on the generally optimistic tone of said hushed conversations, and the mention of Valentine’s name more than once.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, let’s get down to business! Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”

The next morning was picked up pretty much right where the previous evening left off, with the notable difference of Ellie trying to avoid eye contact while she hovered behind Nick’s seat on the opposite side of the desk, tapping a pen against her clipboard. Another change was the significantly increased weight in Sammie’s chest as she sat down to face the detective. She had a hunch that its origin went far beyond the synth’s unsettling gaze, however.

“When you’re trying to find someone who’s gone missing, the devil is in the details.” Valentine didn’t miss a beat, the ‘skin’ around the corners of his eyes crinkling in a sympathetic look. “Tell me everything you can, no matter how… Painful, it might get.”

Painful, indeed. Sammie’s suspicion about the growing tightness along her sternum was correct, because recounting the fragmented, confusing roller coaster of events and emotions that had transpired within that vault caused it all to balloon out like a black hole. Its imaginary mass grew with every word, sucking in and incorporating so much of the despair, fear, _anger,_ and more that Sammie had been so sure she had been so _strong_ managing to keep at bay so long–

“Oh gosh, I– I just need a moment. Sorry,” Sammie choked out and took a deep breath, burying her face in her hands, and tried to force her tears back down the ducts they were threatening to spill from. She had hoped that there couldn’t possibly be any left after her first few nights spent in a sleeping bag on the floor of her old bedroom, next to the ruined pile of wood and fabric that had once been their shared bed.

“Take your time,” Ellie offered, and Sammie wasn’t really able to make out anything that Nick or Codsworth added to the token words. By the time she felt like herself again and was able to straighten back up, the others had started trying to fill the silence by throwing around some speculation based on what she had said so far. Her return to reality seemed to coincide with the tail-end of the conversation.

“–and only resorting to violence when things started to go wrong. There’s no way this was just a random kidnapping: Whoever took her kid had an agenda,” Nick finished his sentence, leaning back in his chair to better face Ellie as she noted everything down between her own comments.

“But why the young Shaun, though?” Codsworth almost stuttered from the strain in his voice synthesizer, “You even said it yourself, Mister Valentine! He’s so young, so vulnerable! He needs so much care, which must be done _right_!”

Sammie coughed and nodded in agreement, both to the implication that whoever did this was doing so with the full knowledge that they’d have to raise the boy from scratch, and the more subtle suggestion that _only_ Codsworth had what it took to look after Shaun properly. “I… Haven’t seen many children since waking up. In fact, I… Don’t think I’ve met _any_ before arriving here in Diamond City.” She paused to sniff. “Raising a child… Probably isn’t a common skillset anymore, now that I think about it.”

To be fair, very few people had known how to raise a child properly even _before_ the bombs fell. Herself and Nate included: There was a _reason_ she had blown a months’ worth of paychecks on getting additional childcare subroutines added to Codsworth’s repertoire. Whether the next fit of convulsions that wreaked Sammie’s body were from sobbing, ironic laughter, or a combination of the two was unclear to her, but also beside the point.

“What _is_ common, however, is the number of groups in the Commonwealth known for taking people,” Nick responded, his voice low and with a hint of resignation. Having caught on to Sammie’s unfamiliarity with the new world’s political landscape – if one could even call it that – he spent the next couple of minutes graciously answering her inquiries about who these groups were and if he suspected any of them, ultimately leading Sammie to the words she had hoped she wouldn’t have to say.

“So… You think it’s the Institute that’s responsible.”

“Well, they’re the boogieman of the Commonwealth.” It was stated flatly, with a touch of weariness. “I get the impression that you already have an idea of how things work around here: Something goes wrong, everyone blames them. And it’s easy to see why: Those early model synths of theirs have stripped whole towns for parts, killing everything in their way.

“Then you’ve got the newer models, good as human, that infiltrate cities and pull strings from shadows.” Nick pulled a face, his features warping in distaste and annoyance. “Worst part is, no one knows why! Not even me! And I’m a synth myself. A… Discarded prototype, anyhow.”

Sammie didn’t miss the mildly concerned glance that Ellie gave her boss, and it dawned on her that this was her chance to pry some information out of the synthetic sleuth without making herself look even worse to him than she was sure she already did, in spite of his hints to the contrary. She reluctantly spoke up. “A prototype, you say?”

“As far as I know. Never seen any other synth like myself,” Nick replied, glancing away for a moment, “Y’see, there’re the older ones that’re dumb as rocks and all metal, and then there’s the newer ones that are indistinguishable from human. I seem to fall somewhere in between: Got the metal parts, yes, but also the smarts.”

“Huh.” Sammie nodded absent-mindedly, relieved that the inquiry hadn’t offended him. She filed that information away for more careful scrutiny later: In the meantime, it explained why he was nothing like the ones she had encountered at ArcJet, at least. “I’m guessing not ‘smarts’ relating to anything the Institute is doing, though?”

Valentine nodded, formal and curtly, giving Sammie the impression that he was quickly becoming tired with this line of flipped questioning and that she should leave be once the current topic was put down. “Some kind of security setting strips or blocks out those memories. And it’s not just me: _Any_ synth that gets trashed, left behind, or escapes has the exact same problem. Some sort of failsafe is my best guess. Anyway, we’re getting off track with this wild speculation. Any ideas to add, Ellie?”

It was a way to move the conversation away from him, but Sammie didn’t really blame Nick. She turned her attention to the secretary, who blinked and let out a surprised squeak at being addressed all of a sudden before quickly squinting at her notes. “Ahh… We don’t seem to have anything about appearance, yet?”

“Right.” Nick turned back to Sammie, who met his gaze uncomfortably. “Do you remember anything about what they looked like?”

“Oh jeez…” The glass of her pod had still been mostly covered in ice and condensation when it happened, this was going to be hard. Sammie furrowed her brows, trying her best to remember while recounting the vague image she could conjure up in her mind’s eye. Basic things, like outfits and height were all well and good, since she had had Nate as a reference point, but details beyond that…

“…I guess the side of the man’s face was more sort of… Warped, than everything else.” Sammie shrugged glumly, bitter defeat starting to settle over her. “I dunno, maybe a scar? I couldn’t tell well enough through the glass.”

She hadn’t expected the detective’s eyes to go wide near-instantaneously and him to straighten up in his seat. “Wait! You didn’t happen to hear the name ‘Kellogg’ at all, did you?”

“Kellogg? You don’t think..?” Ellie whispered forcefully, but Nick held up his hand and shook his head at her. Let the woman talk.

“I… No. There was ice over my window, not my ears.” Sammie held up her hands in defeat. “I didn’t hear anything that could have been a name, and nothing like… ‘Kellogg’.”

“Well, the description _does_ match,” Ellie pointed out, “Bald. Scar over the left eye. Reputation for dangerous and sometimes outright _confusing_ mercenary work. And of course, no one knows who his employer is. This entire situation sounds like something right up his alley.”

“Yeah, but more importantly: A few months ago he bought a house right here in town. And he had a _kid_ with him.”

“That’s right, the house in the abandoned section of the west–”

Sammie couldn’t have stood up faster if she tried. “That’s Shaun! It’s got to be!” The words flew out of her mouth before she even thought of them, but when both Nick and Ellie fell silent and stared at her in response to the outburst, she was quickly sent reeling. “I– I mean– I was frozen again, after they. You know. I don’t know how long for, but…”

“Hey now, don’t jump the gun on me just yet.” Nick stood too, holding up the metal claw of his right hand only to glance at it, balk, and quickly shove it into one of his pockets. “While there’s every chance it’s your boy, we have to consider other options, too: Maybe Kellogg has a son of his own? Or it could be someone else’s kid. Either way, they both vanished a few days before I set out after Skinny and his crew, so it’s not like we can just arrange to have a friendly chat with them over whiskey at the Dugout.”

“Complication after complication. Just as I thought we were getting somewhere, too...” Codsworth despaired, and Sammie felt her own posture deflate as well.

Nick glanced between the robot and Sammie, expression softening. “I never said anything about this not being workable: We can go take a walk down to Kellogg’s last known address, see if we can snoop out where he went.”

As he approached another desk at the back of the room and opened one of the drawers to start picking through it, Ellie piped up. “While I agree that’s a good place to start, you three should be careful. Security doesn’t really go to that part of town.”

At this, however, Sammie couldn’t stay silent. “‘Doesn’t really go to that part of town’? I don’t know about you guys, but the last time I checked, Security was located _right under_ that part of town.”

The detective chuckled, withdrawing an obviously well-cared-for revolver and some extra rounds from the drawer and slipping them beneath his coat. “You’ve got an awful lot left to learn about Diamond City, kid. Lucky for you, I’m not one to leave someone in need without essential street smarts, especially when I owe that person my freedom.”

He sauntered up next to her, tilting his hat and smiling softly. Sammie’s stomach twisted yet again, but this time the feeling was more of an etiquette thing than anything else, carrying with it an urge to smile back. Sammie nervously obliged, and Nick nodded in acknowledgement while gesturing to Codsworth. “I’ll lead the way, then. You two keep close, now.”

 

* * *

 

The contrast between Valentine’s reassuring words inside the Agency, and his much more ominous ones once they had left and Ellie was out of earshot grated on Sammie as she stared out over Diamond City some time later. It seemed Kellogg was a big deal in the Commonwealth – a dangerous big deal – and as soon as she walked through the door to this house, a dangerous big deal that she would almost certainly be making an enemy out of.

“…Damned lock. Won’t– You got something to hide, Kellogg?!”

 _If_ she ever walked through the door to this house.

“No luck?” she hazarded to ask, and the detective grunted.

“It’s a stubborn one, I’ll admit that,” Nick muttered. There was a pause as he pried his fingertips from the keyhole and gave his digits an experimental flex to make sure nothing had jammed, then straightened up and faced Sammie, folding his arms and tilting his head toward the stands across the stadium. “You see that platform near the city entrance? That’s the elevator to the mayor’s office. It’d be a good idea to have a backup plan if I can’t get in here the old fashioned way, so why don’t you go and ask around there? They have spare keys for most of the properties in town.”

Wanting to keep herself busy following her emotional ride in the Agency, Sammie agreed and said she’d have a look into it. Nick had given her some more information about what to expect up there, then turned his attention back to trying to jimmy the lock once she and Codsworth headed off.

This was a decision she regretted the very instant the old construction lift creaked to life and started climbing its way up the side of the city at a hair-raisingly shaky pace. Sammie let out a high pitched squeal and held on for dear life the whole way, but even the shoddy workmanship of the only thing suspending her thirty-odd feet in the air didn’t make her wish she had stayed put with Nick as much as the first thing she heard upon scurrying inside.

“Why doesn’t the mayor come out of his office, huh? He afraid of talking to the press? I bet if I said I was with the Institute, he’d come running!”

Oh great.

 _Piper_.

“You ever think maybe you could get man’s attention easier if you used _softer_ words, hon? Maybe shout a little less?” The mayor’s secretary was less than impressed, her face comparable to a cardboard cut-out in its boredom.

“Ah. That reminds me of this article I’m writing about the mayor’s affair with a certain air-headed, blonde–”

“ _Oooo-_ kay! I think we’ve heard enough!” Codsworth cut in unexpectedly, causing both women to break their glares at each other to whip around and face him and Sammie. Piper was the first to put together a response.

“Oooo, look who it is! The talk of the town!” She grinned widely, and Sammie blinked in confusion. Talk of the town? And more importantly why had Piper apparently forgotten the rockiness surrounding their introduction so quickly? “What brings _you_ to the mayor’s office, huh?”

“You were here first, Piper, so I guess that means you can talk first.” Sammie, on the other hand, had most certainly _not_ forgotten the trouble this woman had almost gotten her into.

Piper’s grin only grew, and the reporter snickered. “Nah-uh. Not until it’s in print. You can read _all_ about it in the next issue.”

Sammie narrowed her eyes, but she couldn’t stop her mouth from curling into a smirk.

A sigh interrupted their staring contest. “If you’re done crowding the reception area, Miss Piper, the mayor needs to make time for more _responsible_ citizens.”

“Hrmph. I was just leaving anyway.” The smile dropped from Piper’s face and she leered over her shoulder before turning back to Sammie, her grin having magically returned. “Anyway… Why don’t you stop by my office after you see McDonough? I think I just found my next story.”

“I’m sorry?” Sammie asked.

“Yeah! An _interview_ , Blue. Get with the program.” She shrugged as if it were the simplest thing in the world, and Sammie wrinkled her nose in confusion.

“Why me? And what’re you calling me ‘blue’ for?”

“Ah, ‘cause you’re a Vault Dweller?” Piper raised her hands and an eyebrow. “I know you’re not wearing the blue jumpsuit or anything, but the Pip-Boy and that ‘fish out of water’ look are dead giveaways. I think it’s time Diamond City got a little outsider perspective on the Commonwealth in print, and that makes you the perfect candidate.

 _“Anyways_ ,” Piper said with a dramatic wave of her hand, “I’ll see you around. Best of luck with McDonough, whatever it is you’re after: You’ll need it.” She left for the elevator, and Sammie stared after the reporter in a combination of concern and uncertainly. Or at least she did until Codsworth poked her shoulder with his manipulator claw and pointed to the secretary who was watching them expectantly. What had Nick said her name was again? Geneva?

“Apologies, miss. The mayor _is_ receiving visitors at the moment, just as long as they’re not members of the press. Did you need any help?”

“Who do I need to talk to about getting into an abandoned house that’s been locked up?” Sammie asked, then quickly added: “It’s a long story. And important. Really.”

Thankfully, Geneva didn’t seem to be phased by this request. “If you’re talking about property that the city has seized, we only have one such example on the books. Mister Kellogg’s old house. While I’ll admit I’m curious as to why you would want to poke your nose into _his_ business, you’d have to ask the mayor directly if you want access.”

“Alright, when might I be able to talk to him?”

“You can go right on in, miss. He’s set aside time to talk to petitioners all day, in fact. Good luck.” She smiled politely, then gestured to a guard by the door, who moved to open it. Sammie thanked the secretary again, asked Codsworth to stay put for politeness’s sake – after all, she didn’t expect that security would be too accommodating of her taking a sawblade-and-flamer-equipped robot into the office, anyway – and then went in when directed to do so.

The mayor was sitting at a plush chair by a window overlooking the city, and a smile spread across his face when he saw who it was walking in. Standing up, he clapped his hands together. “Ah, yes, I remember you! Our new arrival! Oh how I wish I was in your shoes, getting to see our glorious city for the first time. How have the past few days treated you, hmm? What can I do to help?”

“Well, settling in isn’t coming easy, but I’d say I’m starting to get there.” Sammie chuckled slightly, remembering McDonough’s attempt at hinting her in the right direction when she had first arrived. “If it’s any indication that things are starting to fall into place, though, Nick Valentine sent me.”

“ _Did he_ now?” The man beamed and winked, though quickly sobered. “Got yourself your investigation now? Just as long as you two aren’t trying to get _me_ into hot water now, hahahaha!”

“Oh gosh, no. We just need to get into a house that might give us some clues for finding my missing person. He said that you’d be the one to talk to, so… Are you able to help?”

“W-well, we don’t have _every_ key in the city, I mean, where would we put them all?” McDonough joked, but then he became completely serious, all business, “Besides, every citizen in my city has a basic right to their privacy. While we do have that particular key, I’m afraid only the owner can ask for it.”

Sammie resisted the urge to sigh. “So that’s it? You’re not going to help.”

The mayor closed his eyes, pulling a sad face. “As much as I wish to, miss, I’m afraid I have to stick to my rules.” He opened his eyes again, glancing to a terminal on his nearby desk for a split-second before clasping his hands and devoting his attention to studying her carefully. “While our security force know that there is no harm in looking the other way when they spot Mister Valentine fiddling with a lock, I can’t go making exceptions for everyone. Security is a part of what keeps Diamond City above the petty squabbles and misfortunes that plague the rest of the Commonwealth – I can’t betray that for anything.”

Throughout this speech, though, something clicked. Something about his manner was… Off, and while Sammie couldn’t quite place her finger on it, she couldn’t ignore it, either. Almost as if McDonough was reading off of a script, not saying what he wanted to, but rather what was expected of him...

In a startling moment of clarity, Sammie suddenly realised what it reminded her of. So many times where a worker’s compensation claim had fallen through, because the affected worker couldn’t maintain their integrity under the threat of their employer taking less _legal_ measures should they go through with it.

Sammie decided to push.

“Please, Mayor McDonough. You and I _both_ know that Kellogg has some more than questionable notches on his belt.” The mayor’s eyes darted away momentarily, and his hand twitched upwards slightly before he stopped himself from adjusting his tie. It was a nervous tell that Sammie recognised from the courtroom, and a hint of excitement bubbled up within. “With people like him around, Diamond City’s security certainly hinges on much more than just _privacy_ , am I right?”

He glanced at the terminal again, seeming to have an argument with himself, and then finally relented with a sigh. “Yes. Yes you are, indeed. I remember Mister Kellogg, and never much liked him myself. Paranoid. Never talked to anyone. Hardly upheld the friendly manner I urge my city’s residents to embrace. While I doubt you’d be able to find him, it cannot hurt to at least try. I’ll get that key for you, but I will ask one condition for it.”

Sammie tilted her head quizzically, the relief at managing to get through to him fading into curiosity. “Oh? I guess that’s reasonable, but what might this condition be?”

McDonough grinned. “It’s actually quite simple, really: I just expect to keep hearing of more good coming from you! I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the town has been abuzz with word of you and your actions this morning.”

“My actions?” Sammie deadpanned.

“Oh, yes! Word travels fast in Diamond City, and so far it says that the ‘new girl’ is one to keep an eye on, and not in a bad way either!” He exclaimed, chuckling as he strode across to a safe and entered in the key combination. “I knew when I first saw you that you’d be a good fit here, and it seems you’re living up to that expectation wonderfully.”

He locked the safe once more, walking back to Sammie while patting down his suit and then holding up a small, near-spotless key, just out of reach. “Diamond City always needs more helpful folks around, so just promise me that this isn’t all just a ruse to get on my good side, okay? Ha-hah!”

McDonough held the key out, and Sammie reached for it with a nod.

“You have my word.”


	5. A Dog's Intuition

The construction lift ride down from the mayor’s office was no less terrifying than the upwards journey, and the moment Sammie’s feet were once more on solid earth she swore to herself that if she ever found herself having to build an elevator, she would do everything in her power to make sure it had more safety features than just a rail. Codsworth didn’t seem to notice at all, too busy rambling on about various features and locations he was able to make out from the vantage point, and then recounting what they had done when near said locations the previous days.

“I feel as if we’re finally making progress, ma’am! Mister Valentine seems to be quite the detective, don’t you think?”

“Huh? Oh, uh. Yeah. He does seem to know how to do his job,” Sammie responded from within her own hazy thoughts. Honestly, Nick was actually the last thing on her mind right at this moment.

With one hand stuffed in a pocket and clenched around the house key like her life depended on it, Sammie had now noticed that there seemed to be a different atmosphere about the city today, now that she was no longer quite so singularly focused on attaining said key. Most people didn’t really pay her any mind, going about their business as usual in direct contrast to the shifty looks and blatant stares that had followed her everywhere two days prior. There was still the occasional frown or suspicious glance when someone recognised her, but Sammie decided that it was actually somewhat of a relief to no longer be the centre of attention.

“Oh, hey! Look ‘ere Mav! She’s got a robot butler! Man, now I want a robot butler…” Sammie’s eyes naturally darted in the direction of the voice, spying two of the baseball pads-clad guards on the edge of the marketplace, one who was frantically slapping his companion on the shoulder and pointing at Codsworth. Her first instinct was to hunch her shoulders and increase her walking pace, get back to Nick before anyone could hold her up, while fighting back the sudden desire to pull the brim of her hat down over her eyes.

“Wait a minute, that’s not the lady Travis mentioned on the radio, is it? Heeey! Ah, sorry miss! But do you have a moment?!”

Spoke too soon. Sammie bit down a groan and stopped to turn and face the two guards running after her, removing her hand from the pocket so she could cross her arms in what she hoped resembled casual impatience.

“Is there something wrong?” The question ended a bit awkwardly for Sammie, since punctuating it with ‘officer?’ not only didn’t feel right, but was probably incorrect from a literal standpoint anyway. She went for a slight frown instead, while Codsworth hovered forward by her side to more closely inspect the pair.

“Oh, no: Not at all. I just wanted to say thanks,” the guard who was apparently named (nicknamed?) Mav said, “I mean, you’re the one who rescued Valentine, right? Good work!”

“Ah.” Sammie blinked. “Y-yeah. That was me.” When they put it that way, it sounded like she was some sort of small-time hero all of a sudden. Huh.

“What he said!” The other guard piped up, and the next thing Sammie knew her arm had been wrenched away into a vigorous handshake. “Y’know, most synths scare the hell outta’ me, but old Nicky? He ain’t like those Institute psychos. In fact, the city feels like it’s back to normal already!”

“Calm down, Jerry! Give the woman some space! Sheesh!” At Mav’s admonishing, Jerry quickly let go and slinked back a step. Whipping her hand behind her back, Sammie could almost imagine the embarrassed expression behind his helmet and mask. “And ‘back to normal’, huh? What? You mean at a low simmer instead of boiling point?”

“Ms Hartwell wasn’t quite alone for that trip, just so you know,” Codsworth cut in unexpectedly, prompting Sammie to quietly facepalm, “General Atomics’ finest was at her back the whole way!”

As usual, the robot’s ingrained advertising spiel went ignored.

“ _Anyways_ , what my colleague here is trying to say is thanks. Diamond City needs to keep hold of its good folks, and Nicky’s good people. Or. Well. Y’know what I mean.” Mav coughed, then tugged on the other guard’s sleeve while making as if to go back to patrolling the marketplace. “C’mon Jerry.”

“Well then. That was… Different.” Sammie watched the two as they went back to their rounds, Jerry glancing back over his shoulder to give a small wave just before they turned a corner. She stuffed her hands back in her pockets again, checking to make sure Kellogg’s house key was still there, and then resuming her trudge toward the western stands. “First that crazy reporter, the mayor, and now random guards. I guess word _does_ travel fast when you only have two radio stations to listen to…”

She heard Nick before she saw him, the detective’s gravelly voice cutting through the din of the city alleyways while he grumbled about rusty tumblers to himself in frustration. Reaching the top of the ramp, Sammie was able to visually confirm her suspicions upon seeing the synth’s back to her, spindly fingers still firmly wedged within the keyhole.

“Well then, thank god at least _one_ of us has had some good luck today,” Sammie commented, and Valentine all but sprung up straight, whipping halfway around to look at her as he worked to free his hand.

“There you are! Was starting to wonder if you had gone and given me the slip.” One last metallic digit was removed from the lock and Nick was able to face her properly. “Judging by your words, I take it you’ve got the key?” Sammie held it up triumphantly as her answer.

“All right, let’s head in. You do the honours.” Nick nodded and stepped aside, and Sammie didn’t need to be told twice. The key caught in the lock for one gut-wrenching moment, but a little bit of forceful persuading later the door swung open.

“Urgh!” The first thing that Sammie noticed was the smell, and she instantly knew that Kellogg was a very specific type of smoker. The mouth-cancer type, rather than lung-cancer. With a huff she cleared the threshold and Valentine followed behind her, Codsworth instead opting to hover in the doorway while propping one of his appendages against the door to provide some much-needed ventilation.

“Alright, let’s take a look around: Kellogg must have left something behind.” Nick didn’t hesitate to get straight to the task at hand, passing Sammie by and scanning over the single-room dwelling while she glanced about trying to get her bearings. How quickly he made for and started rummaging through a set of drawers by the entrance caused her to momentarily ponder if he might have some sort of instant-analysis software, hidden away in his head somewhere. “How about you take that desk over there?”

And how quickly he noticed Sammie’s sluggishness at choosing a spot to begin looking supported the theory. She scoffed and stood up straighter, indignant, but decided it was probably for the better that she didn’t say anything and instead just follow his instruction. There was no use in being hostile to the only… Person, in town who actually seemed to be interested in helping her, after all.

She gave the indicated desk a quick once-over as she approached, the only thing out of the ordinary being a fine layer of dust over the various tools and writing implements that were scattered about it, and even that wasn’t _really_ unexpected considering what had been said about the mercenary skipping town a few weeks ago. Nothing of note was in the toolbox either, and peering into a ceramic mug rewarded Sammie with a rancid nose-full of dry, curdled milk.

Yep, the fact that Kellogg likes his coffee white was _exactly_ the information she needed to track him down.

“Does the place seem small to you?” Nick questioned, and Sammie looked up to see that he was now closely inspecting the rusted tin of a wall. If he had noticed her dry-heaving, he declined to comment on it. “Figured a guy like Kellogg would think big, something’s not right here…” He trailed off, running his fingers along the edge of a panel. Sammie watched for a moment, shrugged, and had just started opening a drawer to start picking through it when the detective suddenly yelled. “A-hah! Look for anything out of sorts: A switch, or button. Probably concealed. I’ll take upstairs.”

“Buttons? Alright, I’ll see what…” Sammie didn’t get the chance to finish, her words drowned out by the synth’s footsteps resounding off the wooden stairs that led to the elevated loft. She shook her head and tuttered, focusing her attention back on the drawer’s contents: Lots of paper (mostly old issues of the Publick), a couple of pencils, and an intricately decorated flip-lighter which Sammie pocketed. She could probably use its contents as fuel for Codsworth’s flamethrower in a jam.

Before moving onto the next drawer Sammie decided to pull out the newpapers and dumped them on the floor, in case shifting them around had caused her to miss something else of note. Good thing she did, because while scrunching up some loose scraps, her fingers brushed over an irregularity in the grain of the wood in the drawer’s side, prompting the survivor to take a closer look.

“Oohhh… What do we have here?” A small block of wood had been chiselled out and placed back in, and Sammie was able to pry it open after a moment of trying to slide a fingernail into the seam.

“What’s that? Did ya’ find something?” Nick’s voice filtered down from above, and soon his footfalls were once again audible coming back down the stairs. Sammie lent over to try and see into the depression, and with a smirk she flipped the switch she had uncovered to be greeted by a squeal of metal on metal. Satisfied, and more than a bit smug with herself, Sammie stood back up and wiped her hands against each other, only for any illusion of pride to instantly shatter when she jumped on the spot upon noticing Valentine standing right next to her.

“Well… That’s one way to hide a room,” Nick drawled, nodding to a previously concealed entrance which had revealed itself. He rounded Sammie to investigate, pausing after only two steps to briefly stare down at all the newspapers surrounding their feet before peering at Sammie with a raised eyebrow. “…Inelegant, but nicely done regardless. That would’ve passed a lot of folks by.”

“Er… Thanks.” Sammie stopped and cleared her throat, distracting herself from the upwelling of embarrassment brought on by her earlier inattentiveness by studying the newly revealed secret room. “I guess this whole scavenging business is helping me to pick up on more than I used to.”

“You certainly are _picking up_ more than you used to, ma’am. Ha-hah!”

Sammie gave Codsworth a foul look, but couldn’t stop a crooked grin from spreading over her features.

“Would ya’ look at this. All of a merc’s favourite things.” Nick stepped through and looked around the space, an action which Sammie soon mimicked. It appeared to be a classic (if a bit junk-yardish) take on the old smoking room, with a fancy chair by a table covered in cigars and beer bottles. That was where another of the stenches in the house came from, Sammie noted, letting her gaze filter across shelves stocked with all the usual trappings of someone who’s field of work tended towards the unscrupulous: Ammo boxes, loose bullets, tools, and rags for cleaning a gun. Preserved old-world food was also well in stock, almost like rations in their arrangement, with a healthy supply of water and–

“And mine!” Sammie all but stepped on Nick’s feet in her haste to bolt past him and grab two Nuka Cola Quantum bottles tucked away in a corner. She thought the synth made a disgruntled croaking sound for a moment, but he either couldn’t be bothered to elaborate or didn’t get the chance before Codsworth yelled across from the other room, one of his optics peeping around the corner with its aperture whizzing between wide open and nearly closed.

“Oh please, Ms Sammie. Right now? _Really_?”

“It’s not like he’s going to be using them any time soon,” Sammie countered, pursing her lips and popping her eyebrows while using one of the bottles to point at the robot.

“Heh, well when I said ‘favourite things’, I was referring more to the likes of the booze and bullets…” Nick glanced between them, stepping towards and holding out his hand to indicate the small table. Sammie stuffed one of the Nuka bottles underneath her arm and scampered behind him, looking over his shoulder as he picked through the various objected littered over it. “Let’s see here: Forty-four cals, Gwinnett Stout, and… Huh. San Francisco Sunlights, eh? That’s a pretty specific taste.”

“Oh?” Sammie felt her stomach drop, inwardly praying that her next guess was wrong. “Is that a lead?”

“It’s an interesting brand, but won’t lead us anywhere on its own, I’m afraid,” Nick answered, voice low, “Not unless you’re willing to risk a cross-country jog on what amounts to a vague hunch, at least.”

Sammie eyed him, equal parts relieved and disappointed, waiting for him to continue. Rather, the synth reached beneath his trench coat to fish around in his breast pocket for a cigarette and lighter, taking his damn sweet time to get a spark and ignite the smoke while giving the room another thorough inspection with an increasingly annoyed expression. The human took his lead, looking over the shelves in the hope that anything might stand out to her like the hidden switch had, but the only thing she really noticed was how Nick never actually took a proper drag upon his cigarette, instead leaving it between his lips to slowly burn away of its own accord.

It occurred to Sammie, then, that he might not have lungs or any equivalent with which to actually breathe. She filed the thought away for later, a small shudder going down her spine. There were more important things to think about right now.

“Any suggestions?” She asked, trying to break the now uncomfortable silence with pretty much anything. Nick studied her from beneath the brim of his hat for a moment, then folded his arms, plucked the cigarette from his mouth to instead rest it between two crossed metal fingers, and bluntly shook his head.

“Afraid not… The crafty snake knows how to clear house and left us with nothing,” he grumbled, and Sammie felt her jaw stiffen and her free hand ball into a fist, “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Sammie inwardly winced at how snappy her tone was, and took a quick breath to calm herself, “I mean, what did you have in mind?”

“Hrmm… Well I actually do have _someone_ in mind, now that you put it that way. A specialist, of sorts.” The detective’s expression turned from gaunt resignation to a triumphant smirk. “I’ve worked with him a few times before. He only likes certain people, but I’ve got a feeling you’ll get on.”

“Well, if he can help, let’s go get him!” Sammie felt a flutter of hope in her chest, and the only thing that stopped her from bouncing on the spot was the need to keep her grip on the Colas. Valentine waved his hand dismissively, a silent request for her to not jump the gun on him.

“No need – I’ll send out a signal and have him meet up with us instead.” Nick actually cracked a full-on grin, leaving Sammie to wander what was so funny all of a sudden. “You won’t be able to hear it, but trust me. He will.” The grin mellowed into a soft smile – one that would have been reassuring on a less ghoulish visage, Sammie dully thought – then, of all things, lifted his good thumb and index finger to his mouth in what she could only guess was a _whistle_. “Okay, I called him. Let’s wait outside.”

Sammie stared blankly for a moment, then nodded and almost tripped over the step into the main room on her way out. Nick hadn’t been wrong about her not being able to hear his ‘signal’, since the only thing her ears had picked up on was some sort of whirring sound like a number of small fans momentarily revving up, but that only left her more curious. Codsworth courteously backed out of the way and held the front door open for the both of them, and Sammie placed the Nuka Cola Bottles Formerly Belonging to Kellogg down on the porch.

“How long do you think he’ll be?” Sammie asked, while Codsworth carefully closed the door behind them.

“If he’s close by enough to have heard the signal, we shouldn’t be waiting more than ten minutes or so. Any longer than that and we’ll have to start discussing alternatives, or try signalling over a wider area.” With that, Nick fell silent, leaning back against the side of the house and buffing his metal hand against his opposite sleeve once the cigarette was back in his mouth.

And so the wait began.

Sammie had always liked to think of herself as a relatively patient woman, but standing around by the house that may-or-may-not belong to her husband’s killer in complete silence save for the continuous clinking of Codsworth’s limbs, waiting for some unknown acquaintance of Nick’s who may-or-may-not be able to help, wasn’t doing much for her confidence in that fact. Speculatively side-eyeing the detective, who was halfway through removing another cigarette from its packet before suddenly deciding against it and returning the carton to his coat pocket, Sammie shivered and opted to distract herself from further speculation about his physiology (if one could even call it that?) with looking out over Diamond City.

The view here wasn’t half-bad. Not quite on-par with the sweeping panorama visible from the mayor’s office, or what Sammie guessed it looked like from the Upper Stands over the other side of town, but one appropriate to the rates such an apparently infamous mercenary as Kellogg would charge.

…Such an apparently infamous mercenary who had her son. Or, if not _her_ son, then possibly another kidnapped child whose parents were no doubt just as afraid and angry as she was.

A bark echoing off the stadium walls stopped that line of thought.

“Ah, here we go!” Nick was already walking across the landing, stopping in the middle with a grin as Sammie turned to him and then followed his gaze to find…

“Dogmeat?” Sammie deadpanned. Suddenly everything made sense, and yet somehow still didn’t make any at all.

“This would indeed appear to be the same pup that was with Preston and his friends. Unless my identification subroutines are finally going the way of the dodo,” Codsworth said, confirming Sammie’s observation as the dog stopped at the top of the ramp leading up to where they were. His dark eyes darted between the three figures before him, and then he bounded along the walkway with a happy bark. Nick glanced at Sammie, and when met with her no-doubt quizzical expression, smirked.

“So, you’re already acquainted, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised. Dogmeat knows his – _argh!_ ” The detective was cut off mid-sentence by the dog barrelling straight into him, a proverbial hurricane of fur, over-excited jumping, tail-wagging, and licking. Sammie laughed, sidestepping away in case Dogmeat accidentally knocked Nick over, something which seemed to be a very real possibility until the synth managed to hook his metal hand behind the dog’s ears.

“Okay, okay! Clam down!” Nick exclaimed, and the effect of his fingers on the dog’s skull was instant. Dogmeat immediately sat down on his hindquarters and leaned his head back into Valentine’s hand, eyes closing and tongue lolling out of his mouth as he enjoyed the scratch. “There we go…” Nick chuckled and knelt down to better reach, looking back up at Sammie apologetically. “As I was saying… Dogmeat knows his kind of person when he sees one. Hell of an animal. Doesn’t really have an owner, but he’s always ready to help out any of the folks he’s… ‘Adopted’, so to say, whenever needed.”

“Huh, I guess Mama Murphy was right…” Sammie finally found her voice, and paused to snicker while Dogmeat attempted to sneakily inch his way within licking distance of Nick’s face, only to be met with the synth’s other hand pushing him back and a low but firm ‘no’. “It’s kind of funny, actually. He was the first living thing I found after getting out of Vault 111. First living thing that didn’t try to kill me, at least.”

“Really, now?” _That_ got Valentine’s attention, if his eyebrows shooting up to be lost under the brim of his fedora, and Dogmeat’s sad whimper as the head-scratch stopped were reliable indicators. His tone of voice took on an impressed tone. “Well then, Ellie must have been on to something with you, if our friend here managed to home in you so quickly after defrosting.”

“And what about you, Mister Valentine? I’ll admit I wouldn’t have picked you for a dog person,” Codsworth interjected, and Sammie quickly spoke up in support of his line of questioning. Mama Murphy had said the Shepherd was a free spirit who picked his friends carefully and stuck to them like glue, so now she was curious, dammit!

“It’s a somewhat plain story by comparison, really.” Nick frowned as he stood back up, Dogmeat staying put and glancing between him and Sammie with his tail wagging slowly. “He started following me about Bunker Hill one day when I was questioning the traders there for a case I was working. Not entirely sure what possessed him to take a liking to me, but I can’t deny that he’s been helpful: A Commonwealth mutt like him can track a man’s scent for miles, and it’s thanks to that nose that I’ve been able to sleuth out some perps I wouldn’t have had any business finding otherwise.”

Alongside his words, Nick dug into one of his pockets and withdrew a half-finished cigar. He must have swiped it from Kellogg’s table while she hadn’t been looking, and Sammie, having figured out what he was hinting at, forced a half-smile and nodded.

Yet, her mind was still preoccupied with his description of the dog, wandering away to replay Mama Murphy’s words. Yes, the old woman was high as a kite most of the time and probably going senile to boot, but she had yet to be wrong once with her visions and vague predictions. Sammie watched in silence while Codsworth and Nick continued to “converse”, trying to figure out exactly what to think of this whole situation.

The memory of two identical men squaring off near Tenpines Bluff rose to prominence, and the words of warning she had been given by the Brotherhood recon team back at Cambridge ominously echoed in opposition to the scene before her… The newspaper she had finally gotten around to reading the night before. The paranoia about Diamond City. The unforgettable mental image of yellow-eyed machines chasing her and Danse down under the shriek of blue laser fire. All of them signs that she should turn tail and sprint in the opposite direction, while she still had the chance to.

“So, why don’t you go ahead? Let him sniff this cigar. See if he can find our man.” Nick nodded to her expectantly, and Sammie wondered if he had noticed her uncomfortable pondering again, and had chosen not to point it out. She looked down to find that Dogmeat was now at her feet, ears flicking as he considered her quietly.

“Okay, boy. Let’s see what you can do,” Sammie said, then gave him a playful pat on the back and held out her hand for Nick to deposit the cigar into. She lowered it for the dog to sniff at curiously, and while he recoiled away initially – probably taken off guard by just how potent the tobacco was – he returned to scenting it at a more cautious rate before suddenly whirling around to face the ramp and barking.

“Good show! Now let’s go find the young sir!” Codsworth hovered from side to side, bobbing up and down enthusiastically. If he were capable of grinning Sammie was sure he would be beaming as wide as his chassis could permit, so much so in fact that she felt her own lips turning up – genuinely – for the first time in days, the robot’s optimism dangerously contagious.

“Now that’s what I wanted to see.” While Nick’s words were positive, his tone of voice was cautious. Sammie turned to face him again, inwardly sighing to herself over being dragged back down to earth just as things had finally started taking a turn for the better.

“Hmm? Is there something wrong?”

“No, no. Not at all!” Nick held up his hands in denial, eyes widening but then falling. “Just. Before we head out, I know this is _personal_ business… And I know you’ve still got your reservations about working with a synth.” He crossed his arms and gave her a pointed look. “As much as I want to see Kellogg finally brought in for his crimes, if you have to face him on your own, just say so.”

Sammie blinked, feeling the tiniest sliver of guilt creep up her spine. Oh yes, he had noticed again, and was offering to stay behind in light of that fact. It was… Surprisingly thoughtful. Sammie actually had to seriously think for a moment, because as much as the detective unnerved her, this was another behaviour that contradicted everything said nerves were based on.

Dogmeat suddenly let out a saddened whine, and all eyes, organic and not, went to him. The dog tilted his head at Nick, tail falling limp and ears perking up. The detective shook his head.

“Sorry boy, but this is Sammie’s choice, not mine. And even if it was, you know I ain’t gonna let _that_ look work on me. Not after what happened last time.”

So, naturally, Sammie became the next victim of Sad Doggie Want People To Play With Me Face before she even had the chance to wonder exactly what “last time” meant.

“Oh god.” Sammie averted her gaze from the puppydog eyes, fixing the synth with a studious stare instead.

He was a synth however you looked at him – metal frame, chill-inducing yellow optics, and more – yet he hadn’t made even the faintest indication that he may do any of the horrible things she had heard, seen, or read about, even after having ample opportunity to do so on more than occasion. In fact, so far Nick had been the exact _opposite_ of those things, completely understanding of her suspicions... Even throwing his own safety to the wind to make sure she escaped the confrontation with his old rival unscathed.

…She also remembered something about a man she wouldn’t expect being “the most important part” of her supposed “destiny”.

And destiny or not, it was hard not to trust a dog’s intuition, even when said dog _didn’t_ have a sort-of psychic backing it up.

“Come on Nick, I want you with me on this. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have even gotten this far.” Not sure what else to say or do, Sammie flashed an attempt at a smile and waved a hand in front of her face vaguely. At the very least she owed him a chance, and probably an apology or two.

“Alright. Let’s get that bastard!” The smile she got back was big and genuine. “And this is your show from here on out, okay? You say jump, I’ll say ‘how high?’.”

Dogmeat, picking up on that the detective would be accompanying them after all, barked and bounced on the spot gleefully. Once he had calmed down he bolted, running partway towards the stairs before stopping to sniff about and look back to make sure his companions were keeping up.

“It’s settled, then! Tally ho!” Codsworth followed as quickly as his propulsion systems would take him, and Valentine strolled after them once he took a moment to adjust his hat. Sammie retrieved the two Nuka Colas and then took a step to follow as well, but paused, wanting to appreciate the feeling of finally starting to accomplish something for just a little bit.

Taking a deep breath, she looked to the northern wall of the baseball stadium and let it out in a long sigh. “Nate… I’m finally doing it. I’m going to put an end to that bastard who shot you, and then I’m going to save our – gonna save _your_ – boy.”

And then she was running once more.


	6. The Chase

Alright, so maybe “running” was a bit of an exaggeration. Charging off after a dog right away would have been a downright stupid thing to do, all things considered, so they had started instead with splitting up. Nick went back to the Agency to explain the plan to Ellie, while Sammie and Codsworth jogged down to the Dugout so she could pay for her stay and gather all of her supplies from where they had been stored.

After all, with there being no sign of where Kellogg might have gone and no indication of how long it might take to find him, there was every possibility that this could turn out to be an extended trip.

Somewhere between an hour or two after leaving the city, said possibility was really starting to sink in.

Sammie quietly grumbled to herself as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, balancing her way along one of the rails of the train tracks Dogmeat had taken to following as he sniffed out the path. Her logic behind this seemed sound enough: Besides the token entertainment value, the metal provided a relatively flat surface compared to the dirt and rocks surrounding it, so by sticking to it for as long as Dogmeat allowed she could stave off the fatigue and leg pains that would inevitably set in later on by at least a couple of minutes.

They had been walking like this in silence for a while now, the conversation gradually dying off as it usually did whenever people found themselves hiking for any significant length of time. The dog was naturally in the lead, and Codsworth hovered to Sammie’s right while Nick Valentine trudged along behind her with his revolver hanging loosely in hand. The absence of sensations such as prickling skin or hairs on the back of her neck standing on end was a nice change for once, since the synth seemed to be wholly focused on keeping his eyes on anywhere but the back of Sammie’s head, preferring to keep watch for potential threats.

To be perfectly honest, Sammie wasn’t entirely sure _what_ he was on lookout for, since their surroundings were primarily open woodland which didn’t offer many places for anything dangerous to hide in, but having an extra pair of eyes keeping vigil was helpful no less. She figured it had something to do with the handful of rocky outcrops or tight-knit groups of trees they occasionally went past.

“I wonder if we’ll end up passing by Oberland Station before leaving the tracks,” the synth mused to himself out of the blue, and Sammie stepped down from the rail so that she could safely stop concentrating on her feet long enough to glance back at him, “Haven’t been up this way in quite a while, actually… Maybe now I’ll finally be able to see if Stephanie’s spotlight project was any help.”

“Spotlight project?” Sammie asked, now curious about this Oberland place and what he was talking about. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Codsworth swivel one of his optics around to face the detective while his other two remained keeping a lookout.

“Mmm, there’s an old check station up further north along the line where some people have set up a small farm. Since this track is relatively free of nasties it gets a lot of foot traffic – probably why Kellogg’s gone this way in the first place – but that’s a double-edged sword,” Nick explained, his voice taking a sadder tone, “You get traders and less _sharing-inclined_ folks both, so a reliable way to tell the difference before they start shooting is vital to keeping your crops – and your limbs – where they’re supposed be.”

“Sounds like a tough life,” Sammie offered. Nick nodded thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything, so she looked back to where she was walking again, now with new thoughts on her mind. The situation Nick described sounded exactly like the sort of thing Preston had talked about whenever they had discussed ideas for getting something resembling the Minutemen established again: People who had the resources to survive in the most basic of senses, but not those needed to defend themselves. She decided then that she would mention their little coalition if they did indeed arrive at the place, finally make do on her promise to spread the word.

As it turned out a few minutes later, today was not the day she would be able to.

Dogmeat stopped and stuck his nose up in the air just where the tracks began to curve around a rocky ledge, growled, then redoubled his efforts to find his way back onto the scent by sniffing around in a circle.

“And so the runabout begins…” Nick drawled, “Might want to get that cigar back out in case he needs a refresher on what he’s looking for, Sammie.”

“Right,” she answered, and flipped open a pocket of her jacket to withdraw the San Francisco Sunlight and have it at the ready. Dogmeat circled around her as she did so, and she would have fallen over when she tried to move out of his way if not for Codsworth flicking out a limb for her to grab.

“Watch yourself there, ma’am! Canines do have that affinity for getting tangled up with their human masters’ feet.”

Righting herself with an embarrassed grimace, she grumbled, “And _that_ is the origin of the term ‘kickdog’. And dad always wondered why we wouldn’t adopt any of his Chihuahua’s puppies…”

Dogmeat was starting to investigate a dried-up rivulet that led around the rock outcrop, ignoring a crow perched on a nearby tree that was cawing at him in annoyance. The bird’s protests against the dog’s presence were lost in a bark from _Nick_ of all people – a bark of laughter.

“Goodness! A _Chihuahua?_ Y’know, I figured you’d have more refined tastes than most, being from before the war and all, but that’s a level of fancy that borders on the ridiculous.” He laughed again, and while Sammie agreed with the statement that small dog owners tended towards more pompous habits (and her father had been a go-to example), it was something else that her mind zeroed in on.

“Oh? And what would _you_ know about doting Chihuahua owners?” she said in a joking tone, smirking and crossing her arms to emphasise her facetiousness. The crow starting calling again, this time at them instead of Dogmeat, and was left just as ignored as it had been before.

It came as surprise, then, that Valentine actually flinched in response, his body stiffening for a split second before he mimicked her pose with the exception of his chin lifted in defiance.

“You’d be surprised what a _detective_ might be able to pick up on after years in the business, Ms Hartwell.” Just like that the moment of vulnerability was gone, the synth’s suave detective shtick smoothing it over and sweeping it under the rug with his voice a low purr. Not _threatening_ per say, but carrying an unspoken dare to keep prying and see if it gets her anywhere, so Sammie conceded with a nod and shrug.

“That sounds as good a reason as any,” she said, picking her words to make it clear that while she accepted the answer and that she wouldn’t be sating her increasing curiosity, she didn’t believe him in the slightest, “Now where were we? We should probably see if Dogmeat’s found the trail again before I start to seriously consider shooting that damn bird…”

“Ms Sammie? Please tell me you wouldn’t actually do that,” Codsworth inquired cautiously, and seemed to relax when Sammie shook her head.

“Nah. Even if I could actually bring myself to do that, it’d be a waste of my battery.” She stretched her fingers and readjusted her grip on Righteous Authority, while Nick tugged on the brim of his hat with a hum of agreement. The crow in question was still squawking at them as they turned to follow the dog in the direction they had come from, backtracking down the rail line a small way before diverting westwards.

“Looks like you’re safe to put that smoke away,” Nick commented as they rounded the stones and into a small gulley after Dogmeat, “Seems our guide here has found the scent again.”

Sammie did so, groaning when she heard the sound of fluttering wings while she buttoned her pocket closed. The crow had followed them, and was now hopping along the rocks, feathers ruffled and continuing to croak threateningly. “Okay, now that’s getting–”

“Wait.” Nick stopped, held up a hand for her to do so as well, and jerked his thumb at Dogmeat. Sammie froze on the spot, and looked in the indicated direction to find that the Shepherd had gone still, sniffing the air with a curious whimper and his ears flicking about. She lifted her gun, and a cursory glance to her left revealed Nick was well ahead of her there.

For a moment they stood there, silent and at the ready, then the crow suddenly squeaked and took for the skies. Both Codsworth and Sammie jumped, the latter almost wasting fusion cell charge despite her earlier claim that she wished to avoid that, and it was only after another minute or so that she finally started to calm and lowered her weapon.

“I guess that was a false alarm…” she hazarded to murmur, so of course _that_ was the exact moment that a grisly mass of tumours, seeping wounds, teeth, and mangy fur stuck its head out of a small cave in the side of the rock face. Dogmeat, who was the closest to it, squealed in surprise, a noise that was little more than a pathetic whine in comparison to the reverberating roar that challenged him.

“Yao Guai! Run and gun!” Nick yelled out, and Sammie obeyed without a second thought.

The next couple of seconds were a blur, with herself and the detective clambering back up to the train tracks while Codsworth charged past them, unleashing a wall of flame the very second Dogmeat scurried beneath him with his tail between his legs. Turning back to shoot, Sammie heard the ghoulish bear bellow as third-degree burns were added to its already exhaustive list of injuries, and yelled out a curse when it swiped wildly at the Mister Handy’s chassis, the sheer weight behind the blow sending him spinning like a top and slamming into the rock face with a heavy _crunch_.

The bear’s roars intermingled with the scream of gun and laser fire, which in turn petered out to leave a surprisingly high-pitched shriek of pain as the dominant sound as it snarled and charged with speed that belied its bulk. Instinctive panic slammed Sammie and she scrambled backwards, redoubling her rate of fire, but miraculously the creature _slipped_ and collapsed, flailing in the dirt until a well-aimed bullet between the eyes finally rendered it still.

“How can something so sickly move so _fast!_ ” Valentine exclaimed, and it wasn’t a question. Just as well, because Sammie had no intentions to try and answer: She just took a few rapid, heaving breaths until she was sure her heart wasn’t about to rattle itself free from her ribcage, then took off towards where Codsworth was gingerly picking himself out of the wall, limbs sparking.

“Ah! That… Didn’t quite go according to – according to – to – to – _plan!_ ” the Mister Handy stuttered out in a glitchy jumble, one of his optics at an odd angle and the others focused on it to assess the damage. Once Sammie, Nick, and a guilty-looking dog had carefully picked their way around the body (Nick whacking it over the skull with the grip of his revolver to be absolutely sure it was dead), he experimentally reactivated his engine and finally pushed himself back into the air.

“Codsworth! Are you alright?!” Sammie had no hope of hiding the worry in her voice, so didn’t even bother to try.

“Well of course I am-! Am-! Am-! Am-!” To the contrary, he most certainly was not. The verbal loop was the least of his worries, even, because right at that moment Codsworth’s propulsion system misfired, causing the robot to ‘jump’ on the spot and knock his buzzsaw arm lose enough that the two endmost segments of it fell straight off with a _clunk_. His two good eyes quickly turned to stare at it for a moment, then back at them with their apertures narrowed sheepishly.

“Am-!?”

“Dammit!” Sammie grit her teeth, screwing her eyes shut to prevent any tears of frustration from working their way out. No! Not now! Just when things were finally starting to go her way!

“I’m afraid this probably won’t be a fix we can manage with duct tape…” Nick muttered, crouching down to retrieve the fallen blade before Dogmeat could accidentally cut his nose on it in an attempt to scent it. He stood up and inspected the broken end for a moment, the grimace coming to his features doing no good for the tension working its way through Sammie’s muscles. “Yeah… Sheared straight through the hinge. Hey pal, how’re your internals going?”

Codsworth remained quiet for a concerning period of time, falling still as he ran a quick diagnostics scan, then his eyestalks shook sullenly. He didn’t even bother speaking, and deep down inside, Sammie already knew exactly what he would say if he tried.

That was one straw too many. Sammie kicked at nothing in particular and let out a string of profanity that lifted Valentine’s eyebrows out of sight beneath his hat. Seeing this, she forced her little episode to come to an end, clenching her fists and crossing her arms with a huff. “…Sorry.”

She hadn’t expected Nick’s expression to soften. “Don’t worry, kid. This ain’t the end of this trip yet.” He smiled at her, but Sammie couldn’t offer anything but defeated exasperation back, so he turned his attention to the robot instead. “Right, hold this for a moment.” Codsworth still had full use of his manipulator arm, and so took the offered buzzsaw while Nick reached into his coat, searching the inner pockets and ultimately withdrawing a small notepad and pencil. Sammie watched half-heartedly as he started scribbling away.

“Naturally the final say falls down to Sam here, but if you give this to Ellie she’ll know what to do.” He finished his note and held it up for them both to see, but his attention focused on Sammie. “I think it goes without saying that I’d know who the best mechanics in town are, so Codsworth’ll be good as new once we get back, it’s just a question of what you’d rather do, now…”

He trailed off, watching her expectantly, waiting for a reply, and Sammie felt her throat tighten and a nervous chill run along her scalp. Well _of course_ she wanted to get Codsworth fixed as soon as possible: Robot or not, he was all she had left of her family right now. But the two ways they could go about getting that done weren’t exactly ideal. If they returned to Diamond City it opened up a risk of losing the trail and Kellogg – and Shaun – forever, and while she was sure Codsworth would be able to return on his own safely, the idea of being _alone_ with the synth was a bit more than just shoving aside her subconscious concerns in order for him to tag along.

The hypocrisy was enough to make her feel sick, and she tensed her shoulders and let out a shuddering breath in an effort to shake it off. “Yes. You’re right. If we drag him along it’ll only put him in the danger of suffering more damage.”

Nick, whose gaze had never once left Sammie throughout her internal struggle, smiled sadly and offered a slow nod. Sammie tried to smile back, not anywhere near as convincing, but he seemed to accept it and held the note out for Codsworth. Rather than present his manipulator claw, however, the Mister Handy waved his remaining limbs erratically, optics moving from her to Nick and back again.

“Codsworth… I’m sorry but we can’t understand you,” Sammie said.

“Am!”

“I think I might have a rough idea…” Nick wondered aloud, peering at Sammie. She gestured for him to go ahead, and he turned back to Codsworth, tipping his hat carefully. “Don’t worry: I’ll take care of her as if I were you. And that’s a promise, alright?”

While it was only his word – and it hadn’t taken Sammie long to learn that someone’s word could mean nothing in the Commonwealth – it managed to chase away the last niggling remnants of doubt in the back of Sammie’s head. Codsworth hovered in place for a moment, metal clicking as his eyes fell fully on her, and Sammie nodded to him before any fear could get the chance to come back.

That seemed to do the trick. Codsworth lifted his claw arm so that Nick could rip the page from his notepad and carefully wedged the paper in with the decapitated buzzsaw in the Mister Handy’s grip. He gave it an experimental tap to make sure it wouldn’t fall out, and then they wished him the best of luck getting back to Diamond City, Sammie adding that she promised to be careful. They watched him on his way, and once the robot was back on the tracks and following them southbound, Nick gave her a tentative pat on the shoulder.

"How about we get moving before that thing’s parents turn up?”

“Parents?” Sammie gaped. That bear was a _juvenile_? “Y-y-yeah, okay. Good idea.”

They decided to go up and over the rocks this time, giving Dogmeat another sniff of the cigar once on the other side of the outcrop so that he could resume leading them onward.

Perched in a nearby tree, the crow watched them leave, glanced in the direction that Codsworth was going, then ruffled its feathers and clucked to itself.

 

* * *

 

Valentine got the chance to keep that promise sooner than either of them expected.

Though with her ears ringing, winded, and having her shoulder screaming at her in pain from being the first part of her to hit the concrete after the detective unexpectedly yelled out and knocked her to the floor, Sammie didn’t really have time to reflect on that. She groaned, shifting her position to take some weight off her arm and bruises-to-be, the light plicker of plastic and metal shards and other miscellaneous shrapnel bouncing across the floor about them coming into existence as her hearing returned to her.

“ _A decoy? Clever bastard,_ ” she thought hazily, prying her eyes open and blinking away the bright shapes of the explosion burnt into her retinas. She became vaguely aware of movement above her, and then the relaxing of a pressure about her torso she had failed to notice prior alongside a weight lifting from her stomach.

“…Right. So. Rule one of working with the synth: If you hear any more beeping, _it ain’t me_.” Valentine’s voice was practically in her ear – no, wait, _actually_ in her ear – his tone low in an unspoken warning, and Sammie gulped as the synth peeled away and allowed her to slowly push herself up into a sitting position. That had been _way_ too close, she realised, the events leading up to that situation suddenly clicking back into place in her memory. They had been investigating an alcove in the side of a tunnel Dogmeat had led them down, and when the dog had approached what looked like a small camp, she had heard beeping and then was suddenly closer friends with the ground than she would have liked to be.

She blinked, rubbing her head, then her eyes widened in shock horror. “Oh god. Dogmeat!”

The woman looked about frantically for any sign of the Shepherd, panic actually managing to return the ringing to her ears for a split second before her eyes fell on Nick, who was on his side and already in the process of working one arm underneath a large, splintered wooden board that had once served as a wall for the small camp, and been knocked over by the force of the mine’s blast. The detective gave her a pleading glance over his shoulder. “I think he’s under here! Mind giving a hand?”

Sammie clambered over on her hands and knees, slowed only by her still shaking limbs, and complied without a word, grabbing hold of the other end of the crude wall and positioning her feet in preparation for lifting. On the count of three she heaved it as best she could while Nick wedged his shoulder underneath and pushed upwards as well, and a moment later a blur of black and brown scrambled out from his wooden prison with a whine. Sammie and Nick both collapsed back onto their behinds once the dog was liberated, and watched Dogmeat closely as he immediately darted for the far wall and curled up into a ball, another high-pitched whine emanating from him and wide, glossy eyes darting between his two humanoid companions.

“Aw, hell. He’s hurt,” Nick mumbled, concern heavy in his voice. He shuffled closer to the dog, carefully holding out a friendly hand and attempted to coax the animal over to him. “C’mon boy, we can’t help if you keep your distance like that.”

Having seen this, Sammie was already taking off her backpack and started to unbutton the side pockets where she had stashed away the majority of her Stimpaks looted from Vault 114. “I’ll get some Stimpaks ready, and while I don’t have any bandages I’ve got duct tape and Grognak the Barbarian issue three-twenty-seven if they’re needed.”

“Good idea: We can always find more stims, but there’s only one Dogmeat,” Nick answered, and he continued his attempt to calm and reassure the dog while Sammie laid out her meagre medical supplies. Eventually Dogmeat slinked reluctantly over to them, allowing the detective to fuss over and carefully check him for injuries while Sammie got stuck with the role of Mean Parent administering any needed injections. Thankfully the Shepherd hadn’t broken any bones, but the weight of that wall collapsing on top of him had given him nasty knock on the head, a sprained ankle, and they wound up having to remove a number of splinters and large, angry-looking shards of jagged wood that had embedded themselves in Dogmeat’s back and neck.

“You’re one damn lucky dog, y’know,” Nick commented, giving Dogmeat a light scratch behind the ears as Sammie removed the last splinter and taped a panel of Grognak battling a hydra over the wound with a grimace at how unprofessional this all was. The dog didn’t look too convinced by Valentine’s words, his forehead furrowing as his eyes shifted away from Nick to Sammie and back. To his credit, the dog had handled this remarkably well once the initial fright had worn off, holding still and protesting only by whimpering until the painkillers kicked in.

“You think he’s going to be alright?” Sammie asked. Gosh, she was going to need to get some proper bandages at some point, or at least find some clothes she could rip up soon. Hell, she should have done that _already_ , actually, but she had gotten so focused on finding Kellogg that resupplying while they were still in Diamond City hadn’t even occurred to her.

“I’d be surprised if he wasn’t. While some of those splinters were nasty, it shouldn’t be anything that the stims won’t be able to close up after a good night’s rest.” Nick finally looked up from the dog, keeping one hand on his back in reassurance. “Which actually brings me to my own question: We’ve probably got at least another hour of daylight left, but with Dogmeat hurt I doubt we’d get far. This place looks pretty tucked away and easily defensible, so if it’s done exploding we might wanna’ think about holing up for the night?”

Sammie watched him for a moment, glanced down at Dogmeat, and nodded. The pup wasn’t going anywhere in his current condition, and it was probably a safer option to hunker down when they had a good spot then to keep going and potentially get caught in the dark with no shelter in sight. “Yes, you’re right. Even if Kellogg gets away, it’s better to live and try again than to push our luck.”

“Right, let’s just make sure there aren’t any more nasty surprises waiting for us here…”

She and the synth both got to their feet and tentatively poked about what was left of the small camp while Dogmeat watched from where he was still lying. A few minutes passed in silence, Sammie using one of the larger pieces of wood that had been blasted out of the wall to sweep the rest of the debris aside, while Nick checked the still-smouldering bedroll and dragged the mannequin which had initially fooled them away down the length of the open concrete passage. Only once they were certain that no more mines were hiding in the vicinity did Sammie stamp out the last embers clinging to the mattress’s stuffing and beckon Dogmeat over to curl up in it, and then she and Nick both sat down by opposite walls to half-heartedly converse about nothing in particular until the shadows of the cars piled up outside started lengthening.

At that point Sammie loosely gathered up some of the wood shards to start a fire with, and once a small flame had finally established itself – courtesy of Nick smugly holding his flip lighter to the wood pile while Sammie obliviously struggled to tie together a bow drill – the detective offered to take care of building the flames up to something substantial and suggested that she should unpack her camping gear and sort out some food. Sammie got some of her dignity back by surprising him with how Nate’s old nylon-weave sleeping bag could somehow fit inside a tiny 20x20 cm pouch, pulling the fine material out in a seemingly endless cascade like one of those old magic tricks where the performer keeps procuring handkerchief after handkerchief, well beyond the apparent capacity of the container or his sleeve.

She was still unashamedly snickering to herself when she finally managed to position a worn but travel-sized cooking pot over the fire without it falling over, though by this point Valentine had long since settled down with his back to the wall on her right, staring out down the end of the hallway that opened out to the tunnel, and eventually to the rest of the world and all the dangers it held. When she started to unpack a couple of portions of Cram and other preservative-laden foods however, Sammie hesitated.

Eyeing the boxes uneasily, she risked a questioning look at Valentine – who was thankfully still distracted with keeping watch – and furrowed her brow in thought.

Erm.

Do synths eat?

She quickly redirected her gaze back to the fire, hoping to come up with a way to politely broach the topic before Nick noticed her awkward pause and fidgeting. You’d _think_ they didn’t, the robotic ones at least, but what if the Institute somehow built them with chemical power sources that needed food as fuel or something like that? Piper’s paper had described a mechanical-on-the-inside synth ordering food at Power Noodles, after all. In that case, just eating in front of him without offering would be rude, but the alternative was that synths _couldn’t_ eat, and asking might bring attention to something that was a sensitive topic for all she knew.

“There’s no need to sit there worrying about how many serves to cook up. I don’t eat or sleep or anything like that, but you and Dogmeat do, so do whatever you have to.” Nick spoke up without even looking, and it was becoming increasingly clear that there was going to be no hiding her thoughts from the detective for the rest of their working relationship.

“Sorry,” Sammie mumbled half-heartedly. Unable to add more to her answer, she sighed in lieu of hanging her head in embarrassment and busied herself by scooping the compressed meat out of the can. It was quickly divided up, her portion thrown into the cooking pot while the rest was put down in front of Dogmeat, who eagerly started lapping it up after an initial, cautious sniff.

Now Nick did look at her, yellow eyes peering out from below the brim of his hat like little neon spotlights, putting her on the spot in front of an imaginary, judging crowd. Sammie suppressed the urge to gulp.

Nick surprised her by suddenly grinning, and Sammie relaxed. “I can’t expect everyone to just _know_ everything they’d ever need to about synths, and everything you’ve told me about your situation says that applies doubly to you, Sam. So next time there’s anything you need cleared up, just fire away. It’s no skin off my nose… Not that I could really afford that.”

The synth smirked and chuckled, though Sammie responded with a deliberately quizzical look as she shook the cooking Cram from side to side in the pot in order to get a more even distribution of heat. “‘ _Sam_ ’?”

“Well. Since ‘Sammie’ ain’t short for anything, I figured there wouldn’t be any harm in there being something that was short for ‘Sammie’,” Nick said, facing the outside world again and shrugging nonchalantly. After a moment he looked back at her out of the corner of his eye questioningly. “Though if there’re any objections..?”

“No, no. It’s alright,” Sammie dismissed, scrutinising the Cram chunks which were just now starting to get that almost bacon-like smell which signified they were coming along nicely, “I was just a bit taken aback, I guess. Most people don’t bother with making it any shorter.”

“Well, most people don’t have to worry about finding themselves in a gunfight with a grizzled mercenary where one syllable could mean the difference between living and getting a chunk of lead in the noggin…” Valentine drawled ominously, and Sammie looked up fast enough to make her neck muscles twinge in protest.

“Oh… I. Uh. Good point.”

“Mmm… But we’ll see if it comes to that tomorrow. For now, you should focus on making sure that you’ll be ready for that,” he said, expression softening, “I can keep watch and give Dogmeat any more stims if he needs them, so best that you make good use of the downtime while you can and get some rest.”

Sammie eyed him for a moment, then slowly nodded. It was just like having Codsworth stand vigil over the doorway while she forced herself to get some shuteye, right? Surely if Nick was going to pull something he already _would have_ by now, but… Well, if she was going to be having trouble sleeping surrounded by Power Armoured guards, she didn’t have high hopes for the restfulness of the coming night.

Oh well, got to make do with what you’ve got.

“Alright, that makes sense,” she answered, nodding, “Now, let’s see if this mess is still raw in the middle…”

As was typical with Cram, it was, and she checked another three times before the makeshift meal was fried enough to mask the gelatinous taste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! First of all I want to thank anyone who's read all of this, and especially so to those who have left kudos - going from getting none over the course of months to suddenly getting FOUR in only one week was amazing - so thank you! I'm glad my writing has been able to entertain people!
> 
> I'm just leaving this note here to say that, unfortunately, updates to the series are now going to slow down significantly as I have run out of my pre-written chapters. I am still regularly working on writing however, and have about two stories worth of partially-written content sitting in the WIP folder, though!


	7. The Siege

While it felt like a long while at the time, Sammie must have managed to fall asleep by a reasonable hour, because when she woke the next morning she didn’t feel like someone had driven a steamroller over her head. Even better, Dogmeat appeared to have made a near-full recovery, his injuries reduced to superficial cuts and scrapes with some bruising once the Stimpaks had been given the time to work their magic. The dog was reluctant to leave Valentine’s lap, the night of sitting through his wounds knitting themselves back together no doubt having been a uncomfortable affair, but Sammie and Nick’s combined efforts were able to convince him to take a nap on his lonesome while they packed their supplies back up.

Not long after, they were on the scent again. Progressing slower, yes, but progressing nonetheless.

Dogmeat led them westwards, over a bridge crossing the Charles and through a largely empty hamlet consisting of small huts built into the roofs of abandoned, pre-war houses, with rickety walkways improvised from whatever was lying around criss-crossed between. Sammie’s curiosity was piqued enough for her to speculate over where the residents had gone, but it wasn’t enough to make it worth deviating from the mission at hand. The place gave her the creeps anyway, which Nick confirmed was an appropriate response with his own input of that sort of quiet being cause to be concerned about the presence of feral ghouls.

That didn’t end up being something they had to worry about, because Dogmeat’s nose continued to point them straight ahead and past the town rather than turning into it, eventually beneath one of the elevated freeways that intersected with the Turnpike further south. It was here that the next interesting part of the journey took place, confirming that the dog was very much still on the right trail.

“Well, it sure looks like we missed quite the party here,” Nick mused as they both wandered to a stop, glancing at their surroundings while Dogmeat had a cursory sniff about. The road was strewn with the obvious signs of battle, scorch marks burned into the asphalt and a couple of Protectrons scattered across the scene in sparking pieces. What caught Sammie’s attention, however, was an entirely different type of robot, one that sent her eyebrows up in surprise.

“Oh, woah. An Assaultron? Never thought I’d see one of these again,” she said, more to herself than anything as she carefully picked her way across to where the machine in question was, torn apart but still functional. She made sure not to stand directly in front of its head while she glanced over the damage, not willing to risk that laser even with its owner in their current sorry state of decapitated and sitting on top of a crate. “Wow, you really got taken apart.”

“Mmm…” Nick let out a low hum in agreement, then chuckled forcefully. “I guess it’s a bit too late to ask for a date?”

Sammie blinked and glanced back at him, not sure whether to laugh, and he responded by putting on an awkward grin before averting his gaze from any of the dismembered robots and coughing, and clearing his throat. For a brief moment, Sammie wondered whether the synth had something buried away in his programming that caused him to react to damaged machinery in much the same way that humans recoiled at the sight of blood or gore.

“…Target is – bzt – known mercenary. Exercise extre – bzzt – caution.” Before she could ask if he was alright, however, the Assaultron head suddenly sparked to life and started spouting off critical damage alerts. “Error: System Corrupt. _I can’t feel my legs_.”

Sammie grimaced, stepping closer to pick up the remains of another cigar that was resting on the side of the crate next to the Assaultron. “No points for guessing who did this.” The robot continued to loop through its error messages while she held the cigar up for Valentine to see.

“We’re still on track. Hopefully he’s not much further, too,” he responded, nodding slowly and allowing his gaze to drift back to the Assaultron, mouth curling down slightly. “Most scavengers wouldn’t let this sort of cornucopia of weapons and parts just sit here for long.”

They stood in silence for a moment, Dogmeat circling about Sammie’s legs to try and get a sniff at the cigar, until the constant monotone background noise of the repeating error report suddenly became too heavy for her. Sammie groaned and put the cigar back down, then reached around the back of the Assaultron head, looking for any loose wires or a panel concealing a processing unit, until she was able to pry something out of place enough that the machine finally fell silent with a last crackle of its vocal processor.

Why had RobCo needed to program those things to act so, well, human?

She tried not to dwell on the cruel irony of that thought once they continued on their way, staring guiltily at the back of Nick’s head while Dogmeat took them on a winding, north-westerly trail through a sparse, craggy forest.

The sun had made some progress on its journey to the centre of the sky once the army barracks north of Natick came into view. The end of their journey was signalled by Dogmeat attempting to nose aside some parts of a motley barricade that had been thrown together across the doors leading into a building that she vaguely recalled Nate mentioning one day. Fort Hagen, was it called?

“Is this it, boy? Is he in here?” Sammie asked hopefully, and the dog barked excitedly through his panting that had become increasingly frequent as the morning wore on.

Nick had noticed, too. “Haha, I knew Dogmeat would sniff our man out! Let’s you and I take it from here, though, give our four-legged friend here a much-needed break.”

“Good idea, I wouldn’t want him to get any more hurt or worn-out than he is already,” Sammie agreed, taking a moment to thank the dog with a good pat and scratch before she checked her Pip-Boy, weapons, and returned to the detective’s side. “Any suggestions for getting inside? Seems he’s done a good job of making sure no one comes in after him, and I don’t think I was imagining it when I saw sentry turrets up on the roof.”

Valentine suggested that they actually try a different building, the remains of an old pub across the street, that the soldiers no doubt got wasted at on a regular basis during their off-duty hours back in the day. There was a staircase still intact and a significant portion of the upper floor was still structurally sound, allowing for Sammie to get a good overview of the fort through the scope of her rifle. She hadn’t been wrong about the sentries, and by letting Nick take a few looks down the sights as well, they were able to pick out and agree upon something that looked like a potential vulnerability.

“Just saying though, once I take this shot he’s going to know that we’re here,” Sammie pointed out, not yet entirely convinced if this was the right way to go about exploiting said vulnerability. Nick just shook his head and smiled.

“Trust me, kid. While I have no doubt that Kellogg’s monitoring every last one of those turrets, one getting taken offline out of the blue isn’t going to be cause to get worked up over. There’s all sorts of potential threats out here, any of which could have decided to take a potshot only to back off when they see the rest of the things. It’s when two or more get damaged that people start to worry that something’s not right.”

Trust me. Sammie had never liked that as a reason for anything, but right now Nick and his local knowledge was the best shot she had.

“Alright. Let’s just make sure to move quickly.”

“Always do.”

She eased her breathing and relaxed her grip slightly, and when the moment was right a quick tap of the trigger sent the targeting sensor above the turret’s barrel flying over the horizon. With the sentry blinded, Sammie quickly slung her rifle back over her shoulder and they made a run down the stairs, across the street, and straight for a boarded-up window below where the now-useless turret was still chugging away. It wasn’t terribly difficult to pry a handful of planks off, and Nick gave her a boost over the sill before clambering through himself.

They found themselves in a concrete stairwell that they were able to follow down to a carpark underneath the building itself. The actual entrance to the fort had been covered by many more automated machineguns – the destruction of which would have given them away for sure – but this way they had managed to slip in undetected, and from here it would be a simple matter of finding a door and praying that whatever security it had could be brought down by Valentine’s nimble metal digits.

Oh, who was Sammie kidding? There was no way this would go simply, not when the outcome would have to end with someone dead on the floor.

Surprisingly, when they did find a door, it wasn’t even locked.

The reason revealed itself soon enough, when Nick suddenly stopped and backed up before rounding a corner out of the stairwell. He gestured for Sammie to be quiet and move back as well, which she did, until they crouched beside each other, one flight down.

“What is it?” Sammie whispered, flicking the switch on Righteous Authority and mentally cringing at the soft noise it made as it powered up.

“Looks like our hunch about Kellogg’s employer was right,” Nick answered in a low drawl, “I know those yellow rings when I see them, and when there’s no mirror involved it means things are about to get messy: This whole building’s crawling with synths.”

For a moment, it was like Sammie was back in the freezer again with how her blood ran cold. It was suddenly looking like this expedition would be over before it had even properly began, because continuing onwards would mean this was going to be a repeat of ArcJet. Except this time she was accompanied by a ragged robot in a trench coat instead of a soldier in full Power Armour. “Seriously? Oh great…”

Nick, however, smirked. “Don’t look so glum just yet, kid. I may have spotted something else that might just be what we need to turn the tables… Come look.”

Sammie frowned just a touch, but obeyed anyway. She and Nick crept back up the stairs, keeping low and slow, until the synth stopped and gestured around the next bend where the stairwell doubled back on itself. On the next landing up was a Protectron charging station, coated in a fine layer dust from two hundred years of disuse, but the terminal next to it was still showing signs of life.

“If you want, I could have a look at that terminal and see if I can sway that Protectron over to our way of seeing things,” Nick explained under his breath, “I’ve always had a way with machines. I’d just need you to keep watch while I try to break through the encryption?”

While the phrasing wasn’t a question, his tone of voice was, and Sammie actually had to admit that this was an impressive turn of events. Nick knew a thing or two about hacking into Termlink devices? Well, who was she to not grasp an opportunity right in front of her? “Sounds like a good plan. I’ll keep an eye out to the right.”

He nodded and stepped aside so Sammie could check that the coast was clear. Once it looked like no mechanical menaces were about to walk in on them she waved him forward, and the synth quickly scurried forward to the monitor and started clicking away at the keyboard. It felt like Sammie’s heart had stopped for the entire time Nick was out in the open like that, every keystroke sounding impossibly loud as her grip on Righteous Authority grew tighter, but then there was suddenly a beep and it was all over as soon as it began.

And just in time too, because a flicker of movement through a door on the other side of the room caught Sammie’s attention right at that moment.

“Alright, let’s see what this old boy can do…” Nick muttered, and two more beeps later he was backing to the stairs again as the robot’s charging pod slid open. Sammie didn’t need to be told to follow him, and the pair of them peered around the corner cautiously as the Protectron slowly trundled across the room, limbs clunking with every step.

“Protect, and serve,” the machine proudly announced, and Sammie could practically feel a shift in the air as every synth within earshot realised that something wasn’t normal. It wasn’t long before the robot made its way through a doorway, spotted the first synth going to investigate the noise, and then lasers started flying in every which way.

For the next couple of minutes, she and Nick focused on shooting at anything that tried to flank the Protectron, lagging a room behind it and keeping its 6 o’clock covered, while taking shots past it whenever the opportunity presented itself. But the machine wasn’t long for this world, the combined effect of years without proper maintenance and taking multiple laser hits finally causing it to fall still just before the last synth they uncovered took one of Nick’s .44 round through the metal cranium.

Sammie took a moment to catch her breath and check the charge level on her current microfusion cell while Nick reloaded, then nudged the Protection with her foot once she glanced over each door to make sure nothing was about to shoot them through one. 

“That… Was a pretty damn good plan. Nicely done, Valentine!” She actually had to beam at him, credit where credit’s due and all that, to which the synth played coy, glancing away and scratching at the back of his neck even though there was a grin on his face.

“Aw, shucks.” He stopped and laughed then, dropping the bashful act. “I just try my be– _Ow!_ ”

It happened right as a bright blue streak flew out of the wall, and Sammie yelled out in surprise, too. The both of them jumped and retreated behind a door, Nick clutching his good hand and cursing the fact he had dropped his gun from the shock. After a moment the barrage of lasers stopped, and Sammie risked peeking out from behind their cover to spy a single cold, yellow eye peering at them through one of many holes in the wall.

“Intruders identified. Engaging primary mission directive: Protect Kellogg.”

Glimpses of white plastic and rusted metal were visible through other gaps, and Sammie could have sworn she spotted hints of movement further back in the adjacent room before she retreated again and a second volley of blue streaks was sent flying into and past the door serving as the only thing between them and being turned into glowing ash piles.

“You alright?” Sammie asked once the enemy synth had to reload, and she was no longer having to compete with the sound of lasers to be heard.

“Urgh, yes,” Nick groaned, seemingly more out of annoyance than because he was hurt, “Just why did they have to program us to feel that initial jolt of pain?”

That actually gave Sammie pause. Nick could feel pain? But didn’t he just shrug off a few bullets to the gut back in Vault 114? As confused as she was, Sammie didn’t have time to speculate, so instead hoisted her own laser rifle and got ready to shoot around the door. “…I’ll try to stun it so we can grab your gun, okay?”

“Right.” Came the curt response.

She took a breath, and whipped around the corner, ready to shoot because her life literally depended on it –

But… Didn’t have to?

Where there had once been a synth keeping them locked down with suppressive fire through a tear in the plasterboard, was now empty space.

“What.” Sammie deadpanned, and she felt Nick peering over her shoulder. They both flinched at the sound of a door slamming somewhere else in the building, and then both cursed in unison.

“Shit! They’re coming, and they’re gonna bring friends!” Nick all but yelled, diving for his gun and scrambling into a defensive position.

“Get away from the door! I’ve got an idea!” Rather than follow suit however, Sammie threw her bag to the ground and after a moment of frantically digging through pockets, pulled out some of the more fruitful results of her scavenging while en route to Diamond City three long days ago. At the sight of the fragmentation mines she brandished, Valentine’s eyes quite literally lit up.

The detective urged her to hurry up with her plan, and Sammie quickly started one’s arming sequence before sticking her head out the door and throwing it down the length of the hallway. The mine rolled a few metres, quivering like a coin on its side and finally fell flat, and Sammie inwardly fist-pumped to herself when it settled upside down so as to hide the small LED which would light up once it was active. She could hear footsteps now, multiple enemies sprinting from around the other side of the stairwell she and Nick had initially invaded from, and she took that as her cue to get the hell out of dodge, dropping a second mine just around the corner of their doorway and then scrambling around the massive pile of rubble in the centre of the room to join her companion in taking cover behind the motionless Protectron.

For an agonising thirty seconds she held her breath, straining to listen over the thudding of her blood vessels in her ears with Righteous Authority held in a vicegrip. She felt her heart sink when the sound of footfalls faded to silence.

“I am equipped with the most advanced Institute sensors available. I will find you.”

Sammie swallowed, suppressed the urge to groan, and peered to Nick searchingly. If the synth had any ideas for a backup plan, now would be the perfect time to say something.

He returned with an equality quizzical expression, but before Sammie’s disappointment could become any worse an explosion rocked the building, naturally causing her to jump in spite of semi-expecting it.

“Hah! Not advanced enough, it seems!” Nick gloated, and it took all of Sammie’s willpower to focus on being ready to shoot instead of trying to come up with her own smart remark when the second mine detonated and sent another synth (Synths? It was more a spray of shrapnel at that point, so Sammie couldn’t tell) flying past the doorway in pieces. Another automaton stepped through it not soon after, wobbling on its feet and sparking in places, but a single foe standing in the open was something they could deal with, and the straggler was dealt with following a short exchange of bullets and lasers.

Once they were sure no more synths were going to be coming around the corner, Valentine nodded to Sammie in satisfaction while he took a moment to reload his revolver. “Quick thinking there, kid. Ya’ did good.”

“Thanks. You weren’t too bad yourself.”

“Mmm… One of those tin cans mentioned Kellogg, so we know we’re at the right place for sure now.”

“So now we just need to find him, and not die in the process,” Sammie commented, the fact that task would be nowhere near as simple as it sounded weighing down on her too much to bother commenting on the irony of Nick calling the other synths tin cans.

“On the other hand, after that racket there’s no way he won’t realise we’re coming now.” Nick slapped the cylinder back into his gun once each chamber was again occupied by a bullet, and gave Sammie a serious look. “I hope you’ve got more fancy tricks like that one up your sleeve, because I’ve got an inkling we’re gonna need to pull out all the stops to get through this.”

Sammie nodded, and while they picked through the remaining rooms in search of any more synths her mind raced for any more ideas that their surroundings could give her. This wasn’t going to be anything like the Corvega plant: Two people trying to infiltrate an old military installation filled to the brim with killer robots and one veteran mercenary was an entirely different ballgame to a band of angry farmers hunting down already spooked and mostly-stoned Raiders.

The room that last wave of synths had come from revealed an elevator and a cache of supplies scattered all throughout, and the pair took a moment to restock on ammo before taking a glance through a handful of the terminals which were scattered about. While they didn’t dwell for long before taking the lift down into the basement, it was enough to reveal that the equipment had been repaired enough to get Fort Hagen’s satellite array operational again – even if in only the barest hint of the word – and the centuries-old eyes in the sky were being trained south.

Kellogg was looking for something, and if Sammie had anything to say, he wasn’t going to find it.

Underneath the main building, Fort Hagen proved itself to be much more than just an army barracks.  It seemed the original purpose of those satellite dishes had been as some sort of surveillance or spy operation, with the majority of the twisting tunnels and hallways leading to generator rooms and databases long abandoned. The only things down here were synths and skeletons, and as the still-functional intercom system soon revealed, not one, but two, pissed off humans who wanted nothing more than to see the other become just another pile of bones among the rubble of the past.

“Well, if it isn’t my old friend, the frozen TV dinner. Last time we met, you were cozying up to the peas and apple cobbler.”

Sammie froze in place, the back of neck prickling while she wheezed in a failed attempt to supress the sharp intake of breath that accompanied her recognition of the voice. She may have been confused and only half-coherent the last time she had heard it, but there was no mistaking it. This was the man she was after.

“Easy, now. No joke intended, but the last thing we need is for you to lose your cool on me now.” Nick’s voice and a light tap on the shoulder brought her back to reality, and Sammie mumbled in response while she gathered her wits back up.

After a glance back at the synth to see if he was ready to keep going, they resumed their slow crawl through the labyrinthine complex. The building’s network of corridors with little in the way of cover working surprisingly to their advantage, making it easy to jump around a corner and shoot any of Kellogg’s mechanical assistants before they could properly react.

It didn’t last for long. Eventually the command centre and maintenance rooms gave way to the more mundane necessities of the people who would have worked here back in the day, Sammie and Nick fighting their way through bunk rooms and a cafeteria, all perfect places to set up ambushes. Minutes turned to hours as their efforts to locate Kellogg became a war of attrition, and a crash course in teamwork as they refined their strategies for staying in one piece. From attempting to draw synths from their cover by faking becoming separated, only to lead them into the other’s line of fire, to turning the Fort’s own defences against its occupants after far too long spent huddled in a tiny storage room containing a terminal.

Progress was made, slowly but surely.

And all the while, Kellogg continued to broadcast to them, finding great amusement in narrating the escapade and making sure that they knew exactly how entertaining the entire ordeal was.

Eventually, when Sammie’s joints were just starting to feel the first signs of stiffness from the combination of fatigue and the hits she had taken, the light-hearted mocking turned serious.

“Okay, you made it. I’m just up ahead. My synths are standing down... Let’s talk.”

Sammie had to pause halfway through a sip of water, squinting in disbelief before quickly draining the remainder of the bottle and dropping it without a thought for littering. “‘Standing down’?” She parroted, and then glanced to Nick with her eyes narrowed.

The synth was in the process of discarding a cigarette, stamping the butt out with a sceptical glare at the speaker next to the security door they had stumbled across. He met her gaze, his eyebrows furrowing. “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks this has ‘trap’ written all over it… Be prepared for anything.”

“I will be,” Sammie said, the finality sending a feeling of deadly calm trickling through her. This was it, what the last three weeks had all been for. It was finally happening.

The door swung open, she hefted her laser rifle, and they stepped through.


	8. The Cereal Killer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you guys were expecting a Super Serious title for this chapter, yeah? :P

Kellogg had a strange idea of the definition of “standing down”. As the lights switched on one-by-one while Sammie and Valentine marched on in, the two synths in question took up positions behind them to keep the pair surrounded. Their weapons were lowered, yes, but Sammie was already acquainted well enough with Nick’s quick-draw to know that meant little in the grand scheme of things.

She was actually somewhat thrown off by how her heart _wasn’t_ beating so fast as to fight its way out through her ribcage when she finally stopped face-to-face with that same visage that had once smirked at her through frost-covered glass.

“So. Here we are. Funny, huh?”

The man was completely nonchalant, shrugging casually and raising his eyebrows as if she and he had just strolled out of a cinema and were jokingly criticising the film’s plot details. A flash of heat surged through Sammie and for a split second she saw red. “Funny? You think this entire mess is _funny?!_ ”

“In a way, yes. There’s a strange degree of… Poetic irony, in the vengeful parent tracking down the _Institute_ using a synth of her own.” Kellogg shrugged with a short chuckle, eyeing Nick over Sammie’s shoulder. “You know, I always did keep telling those eggheads to stop leaving their trash lying about, but environmental friendliness was never exactly on their radar.”

“You and I both knew it was going to come to blows someday, Kellogg.” Now it was Nick’s turn to take part in the conversation, and if the mercenary’s hidden-in-plain-sight insult had affected him, he didn’t show it. “Any good person can’t stand by and let you keep shooting your way through innocent families – all I needed was for you to finally slip up and leave a big enough loose end.”

“And now that loose end’s come back to hang you by your sorry neck.” Ooohh, that one was good. Sammie silently congratulated herself for coming up with the quip, even if Kellogg’s smug expression said that he didn’t find it quite as impressive.

“Hrmph. Lady, loose end or not, you’re still just another puppet like me. My stage is a little bigger, is all.”

Sammie narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t a play, Kellogg,” she all but spat, “As much I wish otherwise, this is reality. And the people around us aren’t just extras to walk all over. What about Nate, huh? Or Shaun? If you insist on talking that way, did it never occur to you that _they_ were the stars of their own shows? Not just puppets – _props_ even – to dispose of as you wish!?”

She was actually genuinely surprised at how coherently that all came out, and that she managed to even think of the comparison, let alone get through the entire speech without raising her voice. If anything, it had lowered half an octave, accompanying the sensation of a deadly calm creeping through her, urging her to raise her chin and sneer down her nose at Kellogg even though he was taller.

Kellogg sighed. “Your husband’s fate was his own choice. All he had to do was let go, and maybe then he’d be standing at your side right now, instead of the rust bucket… As for Shaun, he’s actually doing great. Only… He’s not here. He’s with the people pulling our strings.”

“The Institute,” Nick hazarded a guess, the synth’s tone low and ominous.

The mercenary just shrugged nonchalantly, knowing he didn’t even have to answer the question, and instantly Sammie felt the cool façade she had managed to take on shatter. She grit her teeth and yelled out in frustration.

“ _Well of course_ it’s the Institute! It’s always the goddamned Institute!” Every muscle tensed as she fought down the urge to just shoot the smug snake in the face right then and there, sucking in air through her nose forcefully and gritting her teeth. “So tell me now, you mercenary piece of shit, where is it? Huh? This Institute everyone’s always talking about? How do I get there!?”

“Hah! Really?” The man all but cackled, and to her left Nick tightened his grip on his revolver, watching the exchange ever carefully for any sign that things were about to go south. “Haven’t you been paying attention? You don’t _find_ the Institute; the Institute finds _you_. You open the closet, and it’s just a closet. You can never find the monster that hides inside, not until it jumps out at you.”

“But that can’t stop you from being prepared for when it does,” Nick butted in, his voice raised just a touch in what Sammie’s brain interpreted as both an unspoken warning and reassurance, “‘Cause the ‘monster’ only holds any power over you when you’re still afraid of it.”

The detective had taken this as his chance to attempt deescalating, and, coming down from her outburst, Sammie was thankful for his effort to put control back in their end of the court: She had to keep her wits about her, and getting angry wasn’t going to help with that.

Kellogg, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care either way. “Maybe, maybe not. But I think we’ve been talking long enough. We all know how this has to end. So… Are you ready?”

The mercenary held his hands to his sides in a mocking question, palms outstretched with a smirk on his face, and Sammie was ready enough to know that the only response that wouldn’t lead to her brain getting blasted across the room was _non-verbal_.

And yet, the split second it took for her to raise Righteous Authority and squeeze the trigger was enough for Kellogg to lunge, the shot catching him in the shoulder rather than dead-centre and to seemingly no effect save for a grunt of pain. By contrast, Sammie only had time to swear before the old merc was upon her, barely managing to keep his grip on his own revolver as he grabbed the barrel of her gun with one hand and her shoulder with the other, almost twisting the weapon out of her hold as he shoved it aside with a snarl.

Had this been a movie, this would have been the point where the two rivals exchanged witty banter while attempting to overpower one another, but weeks in the Commonwealth had taught Sammie that Hollywood and reality were two very different things. Other than Nick’s yell to look out and the weapons fire between him and the other synths, the only sounds were both her own and Kellogg’s growling and cussing at each other as they both struggled to keep the deadly end of the other’s gun pointed away from their head while trying to find an opening with their own.

A struggle that, Sammie realised, she was rapidly losing: The man was simply too strong, and that wasn’t only because her muscles – that had only just seen physical exertion again for the first time in two-hundred years – were no match for those of a veteran mercenary and survivalist. No, this strength was downright unnatural, just beyond the limits of human fitness, and if Sammie didn’t do something quickly she would be dead.

In fact, the only probable reason she wasn’t dead already was the fact Kellogg had partially lost his grip on his pistol in his effort to grab her rifle: The gun was pressed against Righteous Authority’s barrel and pointed loosely at the ceiling as Kellogg brought his weight down upon her.

Just as it seemed like the bones in her arms were going to outright shatter, Sammie got an idea.

She let her legs relax, and her husband’s murderer let out a startled yelp as the resistance against the force he was applying suddenly gave away. He was off-balance for only a moment, during which Sammie tucked her chin to her neck and sprang upwards with as much strength as she could muster. Blunt pain instantly rang through the top and back of her skull and stars lit up across the backs of her eyelids in a dizzying cascade, but if the astonishingly high-pitched wail of agony she heard was any indication, it was nothing compared to what Kellogg was feeling.

The hold on her disappeared, and Sammie didn’t even stop to see the results of her headbutt as she stumbled aside, spun around, and jumped away, just in time to spot Nick bring one of the synths down by hooking his foot around its ankle and sweeping its legs out from underneath it. Behind him was one of the rows of terminals, which Sammie made a mad dash for while Valentine dispatched his downed opponent with a well-placed bullet.

More blue streaks of laser fire flashed by as Sammie all but fell behind the barricade-like wall of metal that was the military-grade database, sucking down hoarse lungfuls of air as she flung her backpack off her shoulders and starting to dig around in it. A few more gunshots sounded and moments later the detective rounded the corner to crouch beside her, swatting at his upper arm where his coat had caught fire from taking a hit.

“You alright?” Nick hissed, pressing himself against the side of the databank as he reloaded, the remaining synth asking them to come out of hiding in a deceptively polite monotone.

“Y-yeah.” Barely, Sammie thought bitterly, her arms shaking and still feeling far more numb than she was comfortable with. She continued her search while glancing about wildly for any sign of Kellogg.

“That brings it down to two-vee-two, then,” Nick mumbled, leaning around the corner to take a shot only to growl and duck back in when a flurry of blue streaks sailed past, one hand pressing his hat to his head. “Still not exactly even odds!”

“Maybe a little gift from Arturo will fix that!” Sammie spat, having finally found what she was looking for. She yanked it out of the bag, pulled the pin and lobbed it over the row of computers behind them. A few clinks were heard as the grenade bounced along the floor, Nick’s eyes widened in realisation, and they dove for each other before it was too late.

“Sensor anomaly detecte–”

The whole room seemed to shake with the blast, and a metal foot hit a terminal and clanked to the floor beside Valentine and her while they disentangled themselves and scrambled back upright. Sammie was so quick to point her rifle down both ends of the row of the machines they were in that she almost fell over again, and only after one heart-pounding moment of waving the weapon about did the fact they weren’t immediately under fire again become apparent.

In fact, the whole room was silent.

But more importantly, it was empty.

“Where’d he–? Did I get him?” Sammie risked asking, peering around a corner yet refusing to believe in such a stroke of luck.

Behind her, Nick’s superior optical sensors picked up a flicker of movement just a few paces from the opposite end of the computer bank.

“Get down!”

“Wha– Ai _iaa_ rrgghh!”

It happened all at once: A gunshot, white-hot pain tearing through her torso, and her vision flaring _some_ sort of colour she couldn’t really describe while she cried out. Sammie clutched at her side in an instinctive attempt to suppress the signals flying back-and-fourth through her nervous system while a metal hand grabbed her by shoulder and yanked her unceremoniously around to the next row of computers, more bullets whizzing past. She swore, grabbing a fistful of Nick’s shirt to steady herself while she grit her teeth and found her feet again.

“Well, I have to say. You really are a resourceful little girl.” Before any words could be exchanged or a plan formulated, Kellogg’s voice slid through the air from seemingly nowhere. Flat. Almost sounding bored. Sammie felt herself scowl more than she made any conscious effort to do so, the adrenaline keeping her going enough to exchange glances with Nick and they silently fell into a slow creep through the room, guns raised and listening carefully for where the sound was coming from.

“Stealth Boy. I knew I saw that snake pulling _something_ out of his sleeve,” the synth muttered, his voice low and tense as he kept Sammie’s 6 o’clock covered, “Shoot if you see so much as a fly move.”

Sammie nodded, attempting to swallow away the sudden dryness in her mouth and trying to think about anything other than the burning sensation in her side. God, it was just like Anchorage all over again…

“Unfortunately, it takes a lot more than just resourcefulness if you want to do anything more than simply exist out here.”

Something twitched in the corner of Sammie’s vision, and she whipped around with the roar of Righteous Authority thrumming off its deadly payload in her ear. Nick jumped and spun to face the same direction, but was greeted with only the sight of an old piece of paper floating to the ground, a hole burned straight through it and slowly eating outwards.

Kellogg chuckled, and Sammie became dismayed to realise that he sounded like he was everywhere because his voice _was_. The bastard was using the intercoms again, taunting them over the speakers that filled Fort Hagen so as to not give away his position.

“I would know. I’m pretty resourceful myself.”

Another shot fired, and this time when Sammie recovered from the surprise and her own shamefully girlish yelp, she was hit with relief that she hadn’t been, well, _hit_. Instead, it was Valentine’s turn to curse, his good hand flying up to his head to find it bare, his hat blown clean off and flying across the room.

Looking over her shoulder, Sammie sneered. The detective was physically uninjured as far as she could tell, but that didn’t seem to be the name of the game anymore. Kellogg was toying with them, trying to rub the metaphorical salt in and add some mental and emotional trauma to his dish before serving up the main course. Sammie was well past the stage of falling for it, because she had come to terms with the fact she would more than likely die before she saw her promise to Nate through almost as soon as she had made it. Up until now, she had felt naught but emptiness aside from the pain in her side, had nothing left to get riled up by the mercenary’s cruel idea of a joke. After all, regardless of whoever walked away from this, she would find some sort of peace.

But… Glancing again over her shoulder at Nick yelling out for Kellogg to reveal himself, the guilt started to set in. She was prepared to die – considered herself to already be living on borrowed time since it should have been _her_ who kicked it back in Vault 111, dammit, not Nate! But… was she prepared to drag someone else to their death, too?

“It’s a lesson I learned the hard way.”

She had to think. Come up with some sort of plan. Find the weakness that could be exploited… Then it dawned upon her. Stealth Boys were reverse engineered from Chinese cloaking technology, right? That meant they could be countered the same way, by looking for the tells of someone’s presence rather than them directly.

Find the effect they make on their environment. Like trying to pick out a black hole, invisible against the dark backdrop of space.

They had wandered into a different part of the room by now, the slow game of cat-and-mouse gradually driving the players away from where the confrontation had started. The instrumentation scattered about here was newer than the ruins of the old world, something set up by Kellogg no doubt. It was foreign. Unfamiliar. Impossibly clean save for a few small specks of blood by the next set of computers over.

Huh. Blood.

“Just as you’re about to.”

…That had to come from somewhere.

A phantom pain sparked through Sammie’s cranium, and she remembered the sound of Kellogg screaming.

“And trust me. You’ll be far from the last.”

Sammie raised Righteous Authority, flicked the switch to vent the thermal energy it had been collecting from every previous shot she made into the barrel, and fired at the empty space above the blood droplets.

The screaming became more than just a memory as a man’s silhouette was lit up in a halo of red, the pistol that had moments prior been aimed at her head falling to the ground as Kellogg reeled, clutching at the now-glowing-hot metal of his left arm only to make things worse when he burned his opposite hand. A silvery device at his hip gave off a puff of smoke and sparked, and the mercenary’s entire body flickered into view.

It was _not_ a pretty sight. Other than the burning, the whole right hand side of his face was covered in blood, dripping from a gaping wound where Sammie’s earlier headbutt had driven the barrel of his own gun into the fragile bone right above his eye socket.

Sammie balked for only a moment at the grisly spectacle, which ultimately only served to ensure that it was Nick who fired first. Without a weapon and with one limb burning up from the super-heated metal of his armour, Kellogg was defenceless against the onslaught of bullets and laser-light vengeance that descended upon him. Once the mercenary hit the floor, Sammie slumped to it not soon after, her legs no longer able to hold her own weight.

Finally, some _real_ silence descended upon Fort Hagen. It was over. She did it. She – they – actually did it. Nate’s killer had been brought to justice, even if it was a cruel mockery of the entire concept, and she felt, she felt…

Sammie’s backpack dropped onto the floor next to her, making her flinch and take a sharp breath in surprise just as she had started to calm down. Looking up, she found it was just Nick, placing his hat back on his head and nodding to the backpack pointedly.

“Get a Stimpak or three into you and I’ll see if I can get any useful information outta these terminals. Wouldn’t want to see you pull off a feat like _that_ only to bleed out seconds later.”

Sammie stared for a moment, blinked, then mumbled out a response in the affirmative. The synth’s eyes narrowed in concern, and he knelt down to hold open the bag while she sorted through its contents in search of the Stimpaks. She found them not a moment too soon, because now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off the pain in her side was ramping up exponentially, tearing into her like a hound into a rare steak and drowning out any further attempt to speak because she was certain that if she opened her mouth all that could come out was a strangled cry.

Only after she pulled her shirt and jacket up, jammed two of the needles into her flank, and blissful numbness started to spread over the wound was she finally able to stop groaning. “Thanks.”

“No problem. If you need anything more just say so.” Nick stood again, lightly patting her on the shoulder, and carefully picked his way over to the handful of surprisingly small terminals scattered about the end of the room, pausing momentarily to consider Kellogg’s body along the way. Sammie reluctantly started to probe her wound for any signs of there still being a bullet in there, fighting down the urge to vomit the entire time, and thankfully it seemed that the lead had gone clean through. She tried to wipe some of the blood off her hands, along the ground, and then unbuttoned her jacket, looking over her shoulder to see if the synth’s attention was still on the mercenary’s computers.

It seemed that Nick’s apparent concern for her wellbeing was just as genuine as it had been for Dogmeat, because he kept glancing up from the screen periodically to check on her. Thankfully it didn’t take long for her weary staring to get the message across, because he soon made an “oohh” sound, nodded, and started to focus purposefully intently on his typing. With some semblance of privacy now provided, she slipped off her undershirt, tore the cotton in a spiralling pattern to make as long a strip as she could manage, and bound it around her torso as tightly as she dared before patting some duct tape over it to be absolutely sure.

Once she had buttoned her jacket up once more, she pulled one of the Nuka Cola Quantums she had so stubbornly held onto from her backpack and slowly got to work standing on her feet again. She worked the cap off while wobbling over to Kellogg’s scorched and bloodied form, and after a time spent staring at it, Sammie suddenly _really_ wished that Nuka had been an alcohol company.

“Bah, useless,” Nick grumbled in a low voice, directed at the terminal no doubt, then he spoke up louder to address her. “You okay? He might’ve only gotten you in the side, but a bullet’s still a bullet.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll be alright,” Sammie responded. She turned so that she could watch him approach and take up a position beside her, scrutinising where she had been shot until he was satisfied she had managed the wound, then dug his hands into his pockets so that he could study the corpse. They continued to watch it in silence for what felt like a long time, and again that same feeling started to overcome her. It was…

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not relief, not any sense of having accomplished something, not even smug satisfaction at having one-upped the son of a bitch. Just nothing.

“Gosh. All this tech. You were barely human…” Sammie needed a distraction from the stark reality that was starting to crumble down around her, and found it in the still-glowing metal covering the man’s left arm. Turns out it wasn’t some sort of improvised armour or brace: Now she could see that wires and plates were literally grafted into the body, flesh blistered and still charring around hot aluminium that wove right down to bone. Kellogg had literally burned to death from the inside out, his own enhancements conducting the heat from Righteous Authority’s blast straight to where it would do its worst.

It was like watching a trainwreck. After a realisation like that she just couldn’t look away.

“Cybernetics, huh? Don’t see much of that around these parts… I know it sounds pretty grisly, but you can probably make some much-needed caps by, er, having a dig around in there.” Nick broke the silence in an unorthodox fashion, which had the net effect of only exuberating Sammie’s feeling of numbness. He noticed that and quickly changed the subject. “…How’d you spot the man, anyway? Not much short of heat signature detection can see through a Stealth Boy. Unfortunately, it seems the Institute weren’t interested in that before giving me the kick.”

“There was, uh, blood.” Sammie stopped to lick her lips, then took a quick sip of Nuka Cola when that didn’t really help. “On the ground. I saw it kind of just, appear there. Figured it had to come from somewhere.”

Nick actually looked reasonably impressed, his eyebrows rising a touch and the corners of his lips turning up. “Well spotted. Promise me you’ll keep that up, don’t let yourself fall out of practice: A sharp eye’ll go far to keep you alive out here, Sam.”

“I’ll try… Speaking of which, was there anything in that terminal?”

The detective’s expression returned to one of glumness. “Afraid not. All it does is confirm what we already know: Your son really is in the Institute. The one place no one in the entire Commonwealth knows how to get to. Even I don’t know where it is, and they _built_ me.”

His frustration was evident, but it didn’t hold a candle to the roiling plume that Sammie felt billow up within, pushing aside the previous emptiness and leaving naught but despair and anger in its wake. Her vision blurred and she screwed her eyes shut to stop any of the tears from getting out, but it simply wasn’t enough to stop a growl from clawing its way up her throat, and suddenly everything else was just pouring out, no operator to been seen within miles of the floodgate.

“You seriously don’t know anything? Now that’s just _great!_ My only remaining family’s been taken by some science-fiction supervillain, and mister _metal-for-hands_ here doesn’t know how to get back to the factory!”

“No. I skipped that of the orientation film, while they were busy _pulling me apart_ and _putting me back together again!_ ” Nick snapped right back, raising his own voice for the first time since they had met, and instantly the whirlpool of emotions raging through Sammie’s chest crashed away. Cold remorse struck her, and she whined and buried her face in her hands as the tears finally found freedom.

“Oh, god. I-I’m sorry. I didn’t– I just–” She just _couldn’t_ right now. Couldn’t deal with this. Losing Nate. Losing Shaun. This Institute lording over everything from the shadows. Trying to take back her thoughtless words. This _whole damn world_.

A series of short, sharp, and yet somehow shuddering breaths raked her, only to be interrupted by a firm hand gripping her shoulder. She tensed up, surprised by the sudden contact, then sniffed and tried her best to take a deep breath, digging her fingers into her forehead. It ended up being more of a hiccup, but it had the desired effect all the same.

“Sorry, Nick. I… Wasn’t thinking,” she admitted, letting her arms flop to her sides and grumbled. “I thought I finally had this all, f-figured out! B-but no! Everything is just… Nothing works!”

Nick squeezed and then released her shoulder, allowing her to roll them to try and dispel some of the tension creeping up her neck.

“Hey now, you’ve gotten this far, and with more than just one impressive feat along the way I might add. Regardless, I should probably apologise too. I know what it’s like to wake up one day to find everything you know is gone and…” Finally convinced that her apology had been accepted, Sammie was able to bring herself to look at the synth just in time to catch him waving his hand around them vaguely. “…And _this_ is what’s left. You’ve just gotta stay focused and take it one step at a time, something you’ve been fine at up until now, from what I’ve seen.”

Wiping her face on her sleeve, since her hands were still too slick with blood, Sammie nodded and sniffed. “Thanks, and, sorry again. For that and everything else. I guess I just forgot for a moment that we’ve all got our problems. Not just me.”

“Right, that’s the other thing you’ve gotta do: Stop saying sorry so much,” the synth said accusingly, then laughed lightly when Sammie gave him a confused look. Not exactly the response she had been expecting. “And I’m serious, Sam. You’ve been through a hell of a lot – certainly one of the strangest stories I’ve heard. Can’t be expected to make up for every little mistake along the way.”

For a while, Sammie studied Valentine closely, trying to figure any of this out. She had hit a nerve, obviously, and yet he was still so, well, _helpful_ , for lack of a better word. For a moment she wondered if she should mention that he was well beyond the point of still owing her anything for rescuing him from Vault 114, but some niggling feeling said that wouldn’t make any difference.

Oh well. Like so many other things in this day and age, it was a mystery for another time.

“So, where do you think we should look next?” she asked.

“Hrmm...” He tapped his chin. “Should probably start with taking some of those implants. And maybe the Stealth Boy too. Could be salvageable. If we take a step back and bring in some fresh eyes, someone might recognise some of this and provide us with an idea of where to go next.”

“You don’t happen to know anyone who makes cybernetics, do you?” Somehow she got the impression that the answer would be no, especially after his earlier comment about that sort of technology being rare, but Sammie was willing to question anyway in the vain hope she might get some good news out of all this.

“Sad to say I don’t. And even if I did, I doubt they’d be brave or stupid enough to get involved with Institute brand ones.” He moved to shake his head, but then stopped midway with eyes narrowing. Sammie sniffed again, watching expectantly. Had he just gotten an idea? “In fact… The only person I know who’s willing to sniff up the Institute’s tail feathers is Piper, the reporter in Diamond City. I say we head her way, see if she’s got any dirt that might serve as a lead.”

“Piper? A-are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Nick smirked at her look of worry. “I take it you’ve met, then? Heh. Trust me, that crazy dame knows a lot more than she lets on. And she lets on a lot. If I know her, she’s done her homework. And we need to talk this through with _someone_.” It wasn’t a thrilling prospect, but it was all they had. Plus, after that outburst she owed it to Nick to at least give his judgement a chance, right?

So Sammie straightened up and nodded. “Back to Diamond City it is, then.”

In response, Valentine smiled in satisfaction with the Vault Dweller’s agreement, adjusting the brim of his hat. “Hey, chin up. I know the night just got darker, but it won’t last forever.”

That statement, Sammie decided, was probably one she could trust him on.


End file.
